


Arrakis

by Minnicoops



Series: Dungeons and Dragons [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:22:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 40,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26521357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minnicoops/pseuds/Minnicoops
Summary: A little girl goes missing at Death Valley National Park, but the search takes an unexpected turn. What is really going on?
Series: Dungeons and Dragons [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928458
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Alas, I don't own Stargate. I do, however, own Death Valley National Park because it's public land. Boom! Take that, suckers!
> 
> A/N: Finally, the long-awaited, highly anticipated sequel to Riddles in the Dark! A little bit of behind-the-scenes on this because no one asked; I really wanted to write a fun Sheppard/Lorne friendship fic. This story took so long because I got to 10,000 words and then no one wanted to cooperate with me so I scrapped it and started over. It was originally going to be something totally different, but then I had the genius idea to combine it with another idea and thus, this fic was born. I do hope you enjoy it!
> 
> From this point on, you can consider this series AU (that's right, I said series). Spoilers up through season 3's Tao of Rodney, and features season 3 characters who according to the timeline should probably die at some point, but ain't gonna.
> 
> I did a lot of research on Death Valley, but if anyone is a ranger there and cringes at how I describe it, I apologize in advance.

_Useful Terminology (because the National Park Service uses lots of acronyms):_  
_NPS- National Park Service  
VRP- Visitor and Resource Protection: the law enforcement division of the National Park Service  
Interp/IEVS- Interpretation: the rangers who do programs, work at visitor centers, sell passes, etc.  
DEVA- Abbreviation for Death Valley National Park_

Part 1

_“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”_

_-Frank Herbert, Dune_

He had been hoping for a quiet day, one of those where he could just put in his time and go home. Maybe yell at some folks for swimming in Darwin Falls, write up some tickets for parking in non-designated areas, intimidate people into putting the leashes they knew they should be using back on their dogs. The typical routine of a VRP ranger at Death Valley. Alas, life had different plans for Evan today, the likes of which he couldn’t begin to imagine.

It started with the radio call from Ranger Dave, one of the interp seasonals who had been around a lot longer than Evan. He had retired from teaching and now spent his summers living in one of the hottest places on Earth, passing out Junior Ranger badges throughout the day and spending the nights leading stargazing programs. When he called in the missing child, Evan already knew based on who had radioed that this was more serious than a kid wandering a couple of campsites over. 

Evan pulled up at the campsite and called in his location to the dispatcher, studying the young couple huddled near the picnic table as he did. The man had his arm around the woman, whose nose was red and cheeks tear-stained, but wasn’t currently crying. Dave and another seasonal that was still too new for Evan to remember her name were speaking to the couple. All eyes turned as Evan got out of the car and donned his flat hat before joining them.

“Hello, sir, ma’am,” he greeted as he approached. “I’m Ranger Evan Lorne.”

The man stuck out his hand to shake. “I’m Tom Jacobs, this is my wife Julia. Thank you for coming.”

“Tom and Julia reported that their two-year-old daughter was missing when they woke up this morning,” Ranger Dave supplied. “We’ve been searching the campsite, but haven’t seen any sign of her yet.”

Evan nodded, he already knew from the call on the radio. “What’s your daughter’s name?” he asked, taking a notepad out of his vest pocket to jot down the information. 

“Hope,” Julia said, sniffing back a sob. 

“Can you walk me through what happened this morning?”

Tom took the lead as his wife struggled to keep her composure. “We just woke up this morning and she was gone. We don’t know how she would have gotten out of the tent. We put the zipper at the top of the door, she can’t even reach it. Everything was right where we left it, I don’t understand how she got out.” He took a steadying breath. “We looked all over, but we didn’t see any sign of her around the campsite.”

“She knows not to wander off,” Julia interjected, on the edge of hysterics. “She’s never gone off by herself before.”

“Do you think someone took her?” Tom blurted out, tightening his hold on his wife. “Was she kidnapped?”

It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. Evan had never seen a kidnapping case in DEVA before, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t happen. “We are going to explore every possible scenario,” he answered diplomatically. 

“Oh, God,” Julia sobbed, burying her face in Tom’s shoulder. 

“Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs,” Evan assured gently, “we’re going to do everything we can to find your daughter. I’ll need some more information from you to pass along, but we’ll start searching right away. I’m sure she didn’t get very far.”

Evan had dealt with plenty of missing persons cases during his time as a law enforcement ranger, and many of those missing children. Most of the time when dealing with kids, especially those that went missing at campsites, the search didn’t last long before they found the child nearby. But there were the tougher cases too, the ones that didn’t end so well, where kids ended up exposed to the elements for too long or fell from heights or were attacked by an animal. He hoped this would not be one of them.

Julia gathered herself, swiping at her eyes, and handed him a photo with a shaking hand. “This is our little girl,” she choked out.

He studied the small, round face looking up at him from the photo, her wide green eyes sparkling with joy as she laughed at something unseen. Her cheeks were still chubby with baby fat, and she had just enough dark, curly hair to pull into two pigtails. She was reaching up like she wanted to be picked up, her purple shirt riding up to reveal her round belly. He had a nagging feeling that he’d seen this girl before somewhere, that for some reason he knew who she was. He must have seen the family somewhere in the park earlier in the week.

“These things happen sometimes,” Evan said, finally looking up from the photo. “Kids see something they’re curious about and walk away and get lost.” He decided not to mention the kidnapping angle again. “We’ll find her.”

“Please, Ranger Lorne,” Tom said, his own eyes watery. “She’s our whole world.”

The Jacobs looked at him with so much faith, so much trust that he would somehow bring their baby back to them. Evan didn’t have kids of his own, but they always managed to pull at his heartstrings. He studied the picture again, struck by those green eyes. He would find this girl. He had to.

*****

Hope was nowhere to be found in the campsite. She was nowhere to be found in surrounding areas either. In fact, after three days of searching, there had not been a single clue as to her location.

The search and rescue operation was large, including volunteers from all divisions of the park and the outside community, as well as local law enforcement in surrounding areas. It was mid-September, meaning temperatures in the park still reached the mid 90’s during the day, and without water heat stroke could set in fast. Not to mention, there was plenty of dangerous wildlife to be concerned about. By now, the probability of finding a body were astronomically higher than finding her alive, if they found her at all. If an animal had taken her, they might not even find that.

Of course, there was also the possibility that she had been kidnapped, which at this point might bode better for her chances of still being alive. Based on the quiet disappearance, this was a more likely scenario, even though the parents didn’t understand how a kidnapper would have gotten her since she slept between them in the tent and they were light sleepers. NPS had continued to run the search and rescue in the park while law enforcement in California and Nevada had taken the brunt of the kidnapping investigation, but at this point neither search had any leads.

Evan had been part of missing person cases before, even a couple involving children, but this one was getting under his skin more than usual. Maybe it was that the girl was so young, or that he had been the ranger assigned as point-of-contact with the parents those first couple of days. He had stayed well past his shift to continue helping with the search, his gut telling him that she was still in the park somewhere. Every time he looked at the photo of her, he became more convinced that he was right. It almost felt like he knew where she was and just couldn’t remember; like when he’d misplaced something important and knew it had to be in the house somewhere, that it couldn’t possibly be anywhere else, but he had no recollection of where it had gone.

He’d become convinced in the last 24 hours that she was not in the search perimeter his team had set up near the campsite. He had tried arguing that they needed to look further out, but even he had to admit it didn’t make sense. A two-year-old girl with no water would not have been able to walk that far and he knew it. And yet, his instinct told him that she was out there. They just weren’t looking in the right place.

“Thought I told you to get out of here. I wasn’t kidding, Evan.”

Evan glanced up to see his supervisor approaching his car. Greg Fausse had tried to send him home multiple times over the last two days, and had even threatened to escort him out of the park himself, but Evan had ignored him.

Damn, caught red-handed. “Who ratted me out?” Evan asked. 

“Your piece of shit car,” Greg told him in a flat tone, knocking on the side of the car.

Evan had technically clocked out a few hours ago, but then proceeded to drive around in his personal vehicle to continue searching for the girl. The problem with that was that his Jeep was not only some kind of nasty greenish brown color, but was rusting so badly that pieces were falling off and was easily recognized by pretty much all the park staff. “I’m off duty,” he argued, which was true. “I can volunteer my time off if I want.”

Greg gave him a look that said he wasn’t amused. “There’s a reason we have limits on the time you can work. You’ve been going non-stop for three days. If you’re too tired to see straight, you become a liability to your own safety and the safety of the rest of the team. This is exactly how rangers get dead. I want you out for at least twenty-four hours to get some sleep, or I’m not letting you come back.” 

They’d already had this fight, twice, though he’d upped the time from twelve hours to twenty-four now. Logically, Evan knew Greg was right, he was already at the point where lack of sleep was impairing his judgment. He probably shouldn’t even be driving right now, if he was honest with himself. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he tried. Not when he knew Hope was still out there. 

Still, he didn’t think Greg’s threat to sideline him was idle. The man had lost two rangers in his career in avoidable situations like this because they were too focused on the job to see the danger they’d put themselves in. He didn’t need to become another statistic, or worse, put someone else in harm’s way just because he was being stubborn. “Alright,” he agreed reluctantly. “I’ll go.”

“Good,” Greg said, patting the open window frame twice. “You can come back Thursday morning.”

“She’s still in the park, Greg,” Evan told him. “I know it.”

Greg nodded. “We haven’t stopped looking, and we won’t until we find her or find evidence she was nabbed. But it’s a lot of space to cover, and at this point...” He didn’t need to say that at this point if she was out there, they’d be recovering a body.

“Yeah,” Evan mumbled. He’d heard this before, too. He wanted to make his argument again that they needed to expand the perimeter, but the fact was that Death Valley was a massive park, and even the space they were searching now would take weeks to go over thoroughly. Greg had 35 years of experience doing this; Evan knew he took it seriously. He sighed in defeat, deciding it wasn’t worth the fight. “Thursday,” he confirmed before pulling out of the parking lot he’d been loitering in.

He probably should have headed straight home, but figured now that the sun was going down he might be able to sneak around the long way and prolong his own personal search for just a bit longer. Maybe he would get lucky and see something that would remind him where she was.

Why did he feel like he should remember where she was? It wasn’t like he had put her there. He shook his head at himself, deciding he was definitely losing it.

The darkening dirt roads stretched out before him as he drove, quiet now that most visitors were settling in for the night. He passed a couple of cars, but as the last of the light faded on the horizon, he found himself completely alone under the canopy of brightening stars.

It was one of the things he loved about this park. Most people heard the name “Death Valley” and expected a hot, dry, lifeless crater. But there was so much beauty to be found here. It was one of the best national parks to see the Milky Way, for one. And despite the extreme environment, life still found a way to flourish.

Evan had worked at some other parks, but there was something about this one in particular that captured him. He spent most of his days off hiking and painting scenery, and couldn’t count the number of times he had laid out under the night sky. He had made some friends here, actually got along with pretty much everyone, but he didn’t spend a lot of time with anyone outside of work. It was like he never quite fit in, but when it was just him under the velvet banner of endless galaxies, he felt like belonged here.

“Shit!”

Evan was so lost in thought that he barely noticed the shadowy shape until he was slamming on the breaks to avoid hitting it. His heart hammered at the unexpected near miss as it bolted across the road. The thing, whatever it was, had been about the size of a person, but it didn’t move like a person. Or an animal for the matter. “What the...?”

He had an overwhelming impulse to follow it. Grabbing his gun out of his glove compartment, he hopped out of the car and ran after the shadow before it disappeared into the deepening twilight.

Perhaps it was the lack of the sleep or the strange compulsion that had been dictating his moves the last couple of days, but he barely even considered how reckless it was to take off across the desert on foot at night when he couldn’t see possible dangers. Luck was on his side, though, and he managed to not step on any rattlesnakes or trip on any loose stones as he chased the shape across the rocky landscape.

He was sure the thing was going to outrun him, it was quick, but it stopped abruptly after a five minute chase. Evan jogged to a stop about fifteen yards away, training his gun on it. He still couldn’t quite make out what it was. It was shaped like a person, but too tall, and there was something odd about it. He realized with a jolt that there was no light reflecting off of any part of it, and that it didn’t even have a shadow. The moon was a waning crescent so there wasn’t a lot of light, but there was enough. But it was like the thing consisted of negative space.

He got a decidedly unpleasant feeling in his stomach and his palms began to sweat. What the hell was that thing? His feet wanted to stop, but he forced himself to keep moving closer. As he slowly approached, he thought he caught a glimpse of something in the thing’s arms, something shaped an awful lot like a small child... Hope.

Evan’s pulse quickened, but he kept his hands steady on his gun. “Don’t move,” he warned, stopping again, now within a couple of yards.

The thing turned, but its arms were empty. He’d been sure he had seen her, where had she gone? And what was this thing? It looked like it was wearing some kind of hood, it face just as black as the rest of it. He flipped the safety off on his gun. “Where’s the girl?”

Slowly, it raised its head until the moonlight shone against its inhuman eyes. Evan felt all the air freeze in his lungs as it met his gaze. They weren’t really eyes, they were... he didn’t even know how to describe them. It was like there were two black holes where its eyes should be, and they were hypnotic, sucking him in so he couldn’t look away. As he stared into the black voids, he thought he could hear something, very faintly. A buzzing sound, like the whine of a mosquito in his hear, except it was like he was hearing it in his mind. It made his skin itch all over.

And then, without any preamble, the thing blinked out of existence. It was just... gone. Evan gasped in a breath to his starved lungs, blinking furiously to try and rid his eyes of the lasting image. He was covered in goosebumps, even though it had to be over 90° still.

“Hope!” he yelled, once he could breath again. He searched frantically, but she was gone, same as the thing. 

He looked around for a few more minutes, but it was clear that whatever the thing was, it was long gone. But it had Hope, of that he was sure, and he wasn’t going to stop hunting it until he’d found her.

Turning back toward the road, he realized he had actually gotten pretty far out and didn’t have a flashlight to make his way back. Stupid. Carefully picking his way across the desert, he managed to not kill himself before he climbed back into his still running car.

Forget going home, he needed to round up some help to search for this thing. He did a U-turn and headed back to the ranger station.

*****

Greg had been less than pleased to see Evan turn back up after their chat, but news that he had spotted the girl outweighed his wrath. That is, until Evan described exactly what he’d seen.

“I know it sounds insane,” Evan defended, having realized as he told his story out loud how much he sounded like a lunatic. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it, but I know this thing had her.”

“You’re sure you saw her?” Greg asked suspiciously.

Evan hesitated. He hadn’t seen her well enough to make a positive ID, but everything in him told him that the thing had the girl. “I’m sure,” he lied.

Greg gave him a look, seeing through the flimsy lie, but nodded. “We will go check the area you think you spotted her, but you’re going home. You haven’t slept for three days, Evan. You’re obsessed, and it’s not healthy. I’m taking you off of this investigation until you get your head on straight.”

The other rangers present were watching the exchange with wide eyes.

“Greg-” he began to protest.

“No,” Greg insisted firmly. “You’re sleep deprived. You’re seeing things, acting recklessly. You need to go home and sleep.”

That just pissed Evan off more, but he knew better than to try and change the man’s mind. Greg didn’t screw around. Instead of responding, he whipped around and stalked out of the building.

“I don’t want you driving,” Greg called after him. “Patrick will take you home.”

Great, he was getting a chaperone. Now he couldn’t sneak back to the spot where he had seen the girl. Not that he really could anyway; it would be crawling with people soon if they actually listened to him. Maybe they wouldn’t, though, since they seemed to think he was hallucinating. Some rational part of his brain told him he was acting like a little kid throwing a tantrum, but he didn’t care. He continued to walk out without looking back.

He climbed into the passenger seat with a huff, slamming the door behind him. Patrick followed him out, but stood awkwardly next to the car, unsure what to do. He was a good kid, easy to get along with, but he’d never seen Evan angry before. Actually, Evan doubted any of them had really seen his temper before, he tended to be pretty laid-back. Probably didn’t know what to do.

“It’s fine, Patrick,” Evan told him through the open window, jerking his head toward the driver’s side. “Keys are in the ignition.”

Patrick got in and started the car, but didn’t say anything. It was going to be a long drive. The one time Evan wished he lived in the crappy, government housing in the park...

“Someone going to follow us?” Evan asked, assuming that’s how Patrick would get back after driving him. 

He nodded as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Yeah, Brenna.”

Evan spotted the headlights behind them and resisted the urge to sigh melodramatically. He needed to quit acting like a child if he didn’t want to be treated like one. Instead he told Patrick where to take him. There were only a few towns around, so not a lot of options for which direction to go.

They were quiet for a while before Patrick spoke up. “I hope it’s not weird for me to say this, but that thing you were describing? It sounded a lot like something this guy I’ve run into a few times would say.”

Evan raised an eyebrow at him. Where was he going with this?

Patrick shifted uncomfortably, but continued. “Yeah, he’s kind of... odd, I guess. But in a harmless way. He camps in undesignated areas usually, doesn’t get permits. Things like that. He’s out looking for aliens.”

Okay, Patrick definitely thought he was crazy. “Looking for aliens?” Evan asked incredulously.

Patrick just shrugged. “I asked him about it one time. He’s kind of closed off most of the time, but I’m nice to him so we’ve sort of built a rapport, I guess. He told me he’s seen weird stuff in the park. Stuff that can’t be explained.”

“And you believe him?” Evan’s curiosity was peaked, though he was still suspicious of why exactly Patrick was telling him all of this.

“Oh, I dunno,” Patrick said, as if he’d never really thought about it much. “I always just thought he was a just little weird, but like I said, harmless. But who knows? There’s tons of stuff in the world that can’t be explained. Like the moving rocks.”

Evan stared out the window, chewing on the thought. The moving rocks were a strange phenomenon, but it was also assumed there was probably a perfectly reasonable scientific explanation that they just hadn’t completely figured out yet. His encounter with the thing earlier... He couldn’t even come up with a theory for that.

“What’s the guy’s name?” he asked, not sure what he would even do with it. He supposed he was desperate enough to follow any lead at this point.

Patrick glanced over at him with a small smile. “John Sheppard.”

*****

_Fun fact: Being a VRP Ranger in the National Park Service is statistically the most dangerous federal law enforcement job. Thanks to all the rangers who keep our parks safe and protect their beauty for future generations!_

_A/N: The moving rocks are a strange phenomenon that actually happens in DEVA. In 2014, scientists think they finally cracked the mystery as to why. Go check it out athttps://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/the-racetrack.htm_


	2. Chapter 2

There was a reason John had moved to the middle of nowhere, Nevada, and yet it seemed like other people didn’t quite get it. Apparently, they couldn’t read either, because despite the “No solicitors” sign on his door and his pretending he wasn’t home, someone had been knocking for the last ten minutes. And at eight in the morning, no less. Stomping to the door, he muttered threats under his breath and practically growled as he threw open the locks.

The guy on the other side of the door was around his age, a little shorter, and wearing an outfit that looked straight out of an REI catalog. As soon as the door opened, he smiled in a way that made John want to punch the dimples right off his cheeks. And at the same time, John could swear he had seen him before. Wasn’t a very big town, he’d probably run into him at the grocery or something.

“I’m not interested in your religion,” he barked before the guy could launch into whatever line about finding Jesus he was inevitably going to give. Damn Mormons, couldn’t just accept that a guy was fine with his fate to rot in hell.

The guy blinked, obviously not expecting such a hostile greeting, but composed himself quickly. “Umm, no. I’m not here to...” He frowned, tilting his head slightly. “John Sheppard?”

Great, guy knew his name. John resisted the urge to slam the door in his face. With how long he’d already been standing there, he would probably just keep pestering John until he got whatever the hell he wanted. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Who’s asking?”

“Evan Lorne,” the guy said all too cheerfully for John’s taste. He stuck out a hand to shake, which John glared at until he dropped it. “I’m a ranger over at Death Valley.”

What was a park ranger doing talking to him? Sure, he spent plenty of time in the park, but he never did anything illegal. Or if he did, he was stealthy enough to not get caught. Most of the time. He continued to glare.

Lorne didn’t seem phased at all by his unwelcoming stance. “I heard you might be able to help me,” he explained.

“Not interested,” John replied before he could continue. He made to close the door, but Lorne stuck out a hand to stop it mid-swing.

“No, wait! Please, just a minute of your time.”

John eyed the hand with a scowl and thought about closing the door anyway, but the guy had a look in his eyes that told John he wasn’t going to let it lie until he’d said his piece. “Fine. One minute,” John agreed, crossing his arms across his chest, hoping to convey how unhappy he was with this interruption to his day.

“Thanks,” Lorne said, the smile returning. He paused for a second, seeming to decide how he wanted to proceed.

John rolled his eyes. “Spit it out or I’m shutting the door.”

“Sorry. It’s just a little...” he fumbled. “Okay, there’s a missing kid in the park.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” John asked, bristling. He had seen the news- who hadn’t?- but he had no connection at all to the girl or her family. He hadn’t even been in the park for the last few days. 

“Nothing,” Lorne said quickly, noting his defensive posture. “It’s just, I’ve been part of the search and rescue and last night, I saw... Something.” He winced. 

What the hell was he getting at? “Explain to me why you’re here in five seconds or I’m getting my gun,” John said, hoping his tone implied he wasn’t joking.

Lorne didn’t seem put off by the threat. “I saw something I can’t explain. It was some kind of, I don’t know, creature or alien or something. I think whatever it is has this kid.”

Of course that’s why he was here. Had probably heard about the crackpot conspiracy theorist that lived up the hill, spending his nights searching the skies for UFO’s and scanning the radio for alien transmissions. He’d heard it all, the rumors they spread about him. 

“And, what, you think it was Bigfoot? A chupacabra?” John asked, the sarcasm heavy in his voice.

“No,” Lorne said with borderline irritation. “I mean, I don’t know what it was. It was like... A shadow. It wasn’t human, and it wasn’t an animal.”

The word shadow made John stop short. It was a good descriptor for the things he’d seen. Things that made the hair on his neck stand up. People didn’t usually describe aliens that way.

He shook his head. It was just a coincidence, nothing more. “I can’t help you,” he said, moving to shut the door again.

“Please!” Lorne begged, once again stopping the door with his hand. “I just want to find this little girl.” 

John studied him, something about his tone making him consider. He was sick and tired of people jerking his chain about the alien thing, had resigned long ago to being thought of as a nut, but Lorne actually sounded sincere. Or maybe just desperate. What other reason would a park ranger have to ask for help from a random stranger who believed in extra-terrestrials unless he didn’t know where else to turn? And what harm would it do John to help find a missing kid?

Fine. He would hear the guy out. Letting the door swing open, John turned and led the way into the house. It wasn’t much of a place, barely 600 square feet, but it had a bedroom and a kitchen and a bathroom and that was really all he needed. He could practically feel Lorne studying the sparse decorations and furnishings, trying to judge what kind of person he was. 

John led him into the kitchen where there was a small table with two chairs crammed into the corner to make room for the large telescope that was parked in front of the window. He didn’t get a lot of company.

“Nice,” Lorne commented, nodding toward the telescope. “Do a lot of stargazing?”

John didn’t answer as he leaned up against the counter. Lorne sat down in the chair that wasn’t shoved up behind the table. “So what makes you think I can help find this missing kid?” John asked.

Lorne rested his arm on the table and traced the wood grain absently with his finger. “I don’t know. I’ve never really put much thought into aliens before. I guess I don’t not believe in them, I just think most of the stuff about them is a hoax or something. But... When I was going home last night, I saw something run across the road, and the way it moved... It was just weird. So I followed it, and it had something. I couldn’t see it too well, but I just got this feeling.” His eyes went distant, remembering. “I’m pretty sure it had the girl. So I ran after it, and I told the thing to stop, pulled my gun. And it turned around, and...”

He stopped here, like he was unsure what to say next.

“And?” John prompted.

“And then it just disappeared.” Lorne finished with a shrug. “I don’t know what that thing was, but it was not natural.”

“And so you think it was an alien,” John said.

Lorne sighed. “I don’t know what to think. But whatever it was, it had Hope, and I’m not going to stop looking for it until I find her.”

“And let me guess,” John inferred, “when you told the rest of your coworkers about this, they thought you were nuts?”

Lorne smirked bitterly. “Something like that.”

John ran his hand through his already unruly hair. “Well, I don’t know what you want from me,” he said. 

Lorne tapped his finger on the table, pursing his lips. “I hoped maybe you would have some idea what I’m looking for,” he admitted.

“Because I’m the weirdo who believes in UFO’s?” John scoffed.

“I looked you up, you know,” Lorne said, meeting his gaze. The guy had really blue eyes. “You were a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force. Got a couple medals.”

John crossed his arms again, suddenly uncomfortable. He did not like to talk about his personal life. “So?”

“Seems to me a guy like that doesn’t just throw away a career on a whim to move to the middle of the desert,” Lorne said. “Has to be a good reason.”

“Or maybe I just cracked,” John argued. “Couldn’t take the pressure, so I went a little crazy.” He didn’t like this conversation at all. Should have never let the guy in his house. 

“Maybe,” Lorne agreed, his focus going back to making invisible patterns on the table. “Or maybe you’re right.”

What did this guy want, for John to make him feel better? He couldn’t. He’d thrown away his life chasing theories that so far had led him to nothing except broken relationships and bitterness. He had no proof of anything, just the inability to walk away from the visions, the weird coincidences, the feeling that there was something more going on. It wasn’t his job to prove it or disprove it to someone else, and it certainly wasn’t his job to hold someone’s hand because they had suddenly decided that maybe he had a point with all his alien talk.

On the other hand, Lorne seemed genuinely freaked out by whatever he had seen, and the way he described his experience was eerily similar to how it had all started for John three-and-a-half years ago. A flash of something here or there that just couldn’t be explained. That underlying suspicion that kept him up at night, wondering. Maybe Lorne was headed down that same road. Maybe John had just been alone for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to have an ally.

“Just tell me what they are,” Lorne said, the pleading look returning. “Tell me how to find them. I just need to find this girl.”

It was John’s turn to sigh. “I don’t know what they are,” he said. “And I sure as hell don’t know how to track them.”

“But you’ve seen them?” Lorne’s face was so hopeful John felt bad he couldn’t give him a better answer.

“I’ve seen... Things I can’t explain,” John answered carefully, still expecting that he would be laughed at and called a fool any second now. “Shadows, like you said.”

“Where can I find them?”

John scrunched his face. “If I knew that would I still be out here looking for them?”

Lorne sat back with a disappointed sigh. “Okay, fine,” he said after a pause. “Come with me then.”

John barked a laugh. Who did this guy think he was? He was not going to get involved in this. “No, definitely not.”

“Listen, I need to find this girl,” Lorne protested, a hint of desperation in his voice. “She’s only two years old. Whatever these things are, they have her, and... Well, you’re the best chance I have of getting her back.”

“I already told you, I don’t know where they are,” John insisted with more than a little irritation. 

“But you’ve got a hell of a lot better chance of finding them than I do.”

Lorne stared him down for a good couple of minutes, and John was actually impressed by his tenacity. But he held his ground right back. He wasn’t going to get caught up in some very public search based on some random park ranger’s ghost story. He didn’t need that kind of attention now or ever.

“Look,” he said, breaking the tension. “I hope you find the kid, really, I do. But I am not going to run off playing X-Files just because you imagined you saw something.”

“Fine,” Lorne snapped, and it seemed he was finally getting it through his head that John was not a nice man. He stood and stalked toward the door, but turned back before he reached it. “You know, you can sit out here with your conspiracy theories and wallow in self-pity for the rest of your life, or you can take a risk to prove you’re right and help save a kid’s life. The choice is yours.”

John was a little taken off guard by the blatant honesty in the words. It had been a while since someone had talked to him that way. He didn’t like it, but he realized the guy was right. The Air Force officer in him would be better, would not be so selfish as to ignore someone else just because he didn’t feel like helping. What had happened to him? Was he really that jaded?

Lorne was still watching him with those hopeful eyes, and damn, if the guy wasn’t convincing. Between the look and his blunt challenge... John sighed deeply and dropped his crossed arms in defeat. “God, do you ever give up?”

“Not so much,” Lorne said with a satisfied smirk.


	3. Chapter 3

Sheppard had taken one look at Evan’s car and insisted on driving his truck instead. Evan didn’t mind; he pretty much assumed Greg had put an APB out on him to kick him out again if he was spotted anywhere in the park, and John’s pick-up was less conspicuous than his rust bucket. Plus, this way he didn’t have to pay for gas.

He had breathed a sigh of relief when Sheppard agreed to join him on his search for extra-terrestrial life or whatever the heck they were doing. He still wasn’t really sure what it was. But he had been pretty worried that he wouldn’t be able to convince the guy to come with him, and for some reason, had decided he needed him. 

When Evan had gotten home the previous night he had done some research (a Google search) for John Sheppard and discovered that: A) it was a more common name than one would think, and B) there was a John Sheppard who had been a fairly decorated up-and-coming Air Force pilot before he suddenly retired early and moved to Nevada. 

After some more internet digging and some morally questionable phone calls in which he may have impersonated John’s brother (he was amazed how willing some of the man’s old colleagues had been willing to volunteer information about him to a family member- most sounded relieved and surprised to know he even had family), he discovered that Sheppard had started spewing theories about aliens at some point during the last four years, which had led to his leaving the Air Force. Whether that was a voluntary move or not had been unclear.

Since then, Sheppard had spent his time living in isolation, basically falling off the grid besides the record of him purchasing a shack right outside of Death Valley National Park. Which, evidently, was because he thought the park was somehow connected the the aliens he’d been hunting.

Evan wasn’t sure what he had been expecting when he knocked on the man’s door, but Sheppard had been less of a grumpy old man than he expected. Well, the grumpy part was accurate. But definitely not the old part. He supposed he had just assumed that a lieutenant colonel would be older, and he hadn’t actually seen a birthdate or any pictures associated with Sheppard before he showed up on his doorstep. But the guy couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than Evan. He must have done something pretty impressive to make such a high rank in such a short time. And then threw it all away to chase alien conspiracy theories.

Okay, so maybe Sheppard wasn’t super stable, but Evan hadn’t been feeling so stable himself the past couple of days. For some inexplicable reason, Evan felt that the former officer was trustworthy. He had a good sense of people, had always been able to pick out the good ones from the bad ones. And despite Sheppard’s porcupine act, Evan sensed that he was one of the good ones. 

“So, where are we going?” Sheppard asked once they were already driving. 

“I saw it kinda near Titus Canyon,” Evan said, distracted by the music that was coming through the speakers. “Is this Johnny Cash?”

Sheppard threw him a glare. “Got a problem?”

“Nope,” Evan answered, leaving it at that. So not a fan of small talk then. Or just overly defensive about everything.

The lapsed back into silence as Evan tried to think of an innocuous topic he could bring up. He had slept, kind of, but not very well, and the movement of the car was going to lull him to sleep if he didn’t talk about something.

He _had_ actually tried to get some rest, but as soon as he closed his eyes he’d had vivid dreams that had quickly turned to nightmares. They had started off weird enough, something about flying in some kind of spaceship and a giant shimmering... Puddle. He wasn’t even sure how to describe it. It had been standing up on its side, and the spaceship had flown through it, except he didn’t end up underwater, he ended up somewhere else entirely. In some kind of stone room. And there were people there, tons of people, and they all looked terrified. He had seen Hope there, in the midst of the crowded room, and he had tried to get to her, except then everyone panicked and moved and he lost sight of her. 

When he had looked up to see why the people were panicking, he had seen the shadow being, three of them actually, moving across the room. As they moved, they took hold of every child on the way, and _absorbed_ them. Just, poof, and the kids were gone. He’d tried to get to Hope, to rescue her before the things took her too. But, as is common in dreams, he couldn’t move, felt like he was wading through concrete. And then one of the creatures had been there, right in front of him, pinning him with those horrible eyes.

He had woken up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding. There was no way he was getting to sleep after that. Even just the memory of it now made him shudder. It had felt so real, more like a memory than a fabrication of his tired mind.

He needed to stop thinking about it. They were searching for the girl; they would find her. They had to find her.

“You ever fly the Jedi Transition?” he asked Sheppard in an attempt to both stay awake and shift his thoughts away from the nightmare.

Sheppard glanced at him but didn’t answer.

“Isn’t that what the Air Force calls Rainbow Canyon?”

Still no response.

Evan rolled his eyes. “Are we going to sit in silence this entire drive?” If Sheppard didn’t start talking to him, they weren’t going to get very far finding these aliens.

“I flew it a few times,” Sheppard finally said.

Progress. “What kind of stuff did you fly?”

“You know,” Sheppard interrupted, “we can talk, but it doesn’t have to be about me.”

“Fair enough,” Evan agreed, holding his hands up in surrender. Jeez, the guy was touchy. He tried to think of another topic but was coming up blank.

He was spared the task by Sheppard asking him a question. “So what exactly do you expect us to do once we get to wherever you saw these things?” Okay, skip the small talk. Sheppard was a straight to the point kind of guy.

“I don’t know exactly,” Evan confessed with a shrug. “Look for clues about the aliens or whatever, I guess. Try and figure out how to find them.”

“You do realize that’s what I’ve _been_ doing,” Sheppard pointed out dryly. “For the last three years.”

“Yeah, but now you have me.” Evan said with a fake over-the-top smile. He was only half joking. He felt good about this partnership, had a gut feeling that they were going to work well together.

“Well, great. I’m so relieved,” Sheppard said in the most sarcastic tone Evan had heard from him yet.

They drove for another forty minutes, during which they briefly discussed the weather (even that, Sheppard kind of failed at, and it was Death Valley- you really just talked about the heat) and football (he was slightly better at this topic) and had long stretches of silence. When they reached the area that Evan had seen the alien, he had Sheppard pull off to the side of the road and hoped if any rangers stopped to ticket them it would be anyone but Greg.

“It ran across the road here. Well, didn’t really run. I don’t know what it did. Levitated?” Evan pointed to a spot in the distance. “Went that way.”

Sheppard didn’t react. Just sat there, looking off in the direction Evan had indicated.

“You ever seen them here before?” Evan prompted.

Sheppard glanced at him and shrugged. “No, not out here.”

Evan waited to see if he would expound, but of course he didn’t. Working with Sheppard was going to be like pulling teeth. “Where _have_ you seen them?”

“All over. Wildrose area. Badwater, Dante’s Peak. Never the same place twice, though.”

“Okay,” Evan said, pondering what that might mean. “Do they ever leave anything behind? 

Sheppard shook his head slowly, eyes still searching out the window. “Not really.”

Biting his lip, Evan considered what they should do next. He supposed they could walk around and look for something, but based on what Sheppard was saying it was unlikely they would find anything. Who was he shitting with this? He had no idea what he was doing. 

He jumped in surprise when the door clicked open and Sheppard got out of the car. “We doing this or what?” the man asked, throwing him a look before swinging the door shut again.

Evan followed him, slightly confused by his sudden willingness to cooperate. They walked out onto the dusty landscape, which was already casting heat waves at them. Should’ve started earlier. It was already nearly too hot to be out here.

He really didn’t know what they were looking for, but Evan decided he better put in a good effort since he had dragged Sheppard all the way out here. But it seemed he didn’t need to because Sheppard was marching off toward the spot Evan had pointed out with such purpose in his stride that he was hard to keep up with.

When they got close, Evan pointed it out again, glad he actually remembered where it had been. He knew this particular area of the park pretty well, and though it looked different in the daylight, he had a good memory for locations. “It stopped right over there,” Evan said. “And when I got close, it turned around and looked straight at me.”

“Looked at you?” Sheppard repeated. 

“Yeah. And its eyes were like... I don’t even know how to describe them.” Evan thought about the inky pools he had seen last night and then again in his dream. “Like black holes or something. Super creepy.”

This seemed to catch Sheppard’s interest because he stopped to give Evan his full attention. “Did it say anything to you?” 

Evan shook his head, frowning. He didn’t remember it saying anything. It had just stared at him and then disappeared.

“Damn,” Sheppard muttered with a tinge of disappointment, turning back to continue walking towards the spot the alien thing had stood. 

Trailing him, Evan asked, “Do they talk to you?”

Sheppard halted again, searching the ground for any indication that something had been here. “Sometimes,” he mumbled distractedly. “They ask me where _it_ is.”

“It?”

“Yeah. _It._ I have no idea what they’re talking about.” He tilted his head and crouched to get a closer look at something on the ground.

Evan joined him, stooping to see what he was looking at. He didn’t see anything. “What is it?”

“It was definitely here,” Sheppard said, smiling crookedly up at Evan. “I can feel it.”

Feel it? What was he talking about? Evan frowned again. “How?”

Sheppard shrugged, eyes dropping back to the ground. “Started happening after the first couple times I saw them,” he explained. “Don’t really know what it is. I just get this sense sometimes around the aliens. It’s kinda like a sound. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain”

Evan wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was Sheppard saying he could use the Force? Instinct told him the guy was crazy, but he was also a little past crazy with this entire thing, so there was that. Why not add in supernatural abilities to the mix?

“You don’t get it?” Sheppard wondered, creasing his brow. “I thought maybe... Since you saw one, too.”

Evan started to shake his head, but then remembered the awful cold feeling he’d gotten when the thing had been nearby. And the whisper of a buzz he’d thought he heard. Could he still sense it? He focused, and thought for a second that maybe there was something... But it was probably just his mind playing tricks on him.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe. I can’t tell.”

“Hm. Guess it doesn’t really matter.” Sheppard slapped his knees as he stood and started back toward his truck, again with the swift pace, and Evan hurried to keep up. 

“Where are you going now?” Evan called after him, trying to look like he was walking and not jogging.

Sheppard didn’t turn around. “To get some breakfast.”

*****

It was actually closer to lunch by the time they pulled into the diner. There really weren’t many places around to eat, so they had to drive an hour to find a place. It was one of those hole-in-the-wall joints that served breakfast all day, which was great because John never refused a good omelet.

On the way, John related some of his encounters with the shadow creatures in a less vague way than he had initially. He still didn’t give a ton of details, especially the stuff about how he felt compelled to seek them out, how they made him feel like he was missing some huge chunk of his life and if he could just figure out what they were he would remember it. About how he dreamed about them every night. He didn’t go into any of that touchy-feely crap, but Lorne had proved himself trustworthy enough now to share a few of the facts..

He talked about the first time he had spotted one of them, when he’d been stationed at Edwards Air Force Base and had come up to the camp in the park for a weekend (he left out the part where he had been there with a girlfriend). It had been midday and they’d been hiking, and he had seen something out of the corner of his eye that felt like it didn’t belong. He didn’t think much of it, but it happened again that evening. And the next day. By the fourth time he’d seen it, he had been convinced someone was following them, but he never did see what it was.

The next time he had encountered it, he had just been driving through the park (again, to visit the lady, who lived north). He had stopped at an overlook to stretch his legs and saw the thing moving around in the valley beneath him. He’d followed it that time, and gotten close enough to get a good look. That was the time that convinced him there was something out there and started his quest to figure out what it was.

After that, he had spent every weekend driving up to look for the strange shadow things, and he had successfully sighted them on multiple occasions, always in different places and never for long enough to figure out what they were or what they were doing. No one else ever saw them, he had tried bringing along his girlfriend and other buddies a few times, but he never saw them when he was with anyone else. 

From there, it was the typical spiel. He’d become obsessed with finding the aliens to the point that it took over his life. He lost the girlfriend, and then his friends, and then the Air Force told him to retire or they would kick him out. And so he became a recluse, spending his days alternating between researching extra-terrestrial literature and wandering the park in hopes of capturing some kind of evidence that he wasn’t crazy. Until now, there had been no progress in either of those areas.

John had never shared specifics about the aliens he’d seen, always leaving it rather vague, so when Lorne had described his encounter, it was the first time John had hope that he wasn’t just hallucinating these things. That combined with the fact that John could sense the alien’s presence, another thing he had never told anyone he could do, at the precise spot Lorne had taken him was enough to convince John that this guy wasn’t faking. He had seen the shadow creatures, too.

Now, as they sat at a booth in the tiny diner, sipping coffee and waiting for their food, John found he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. This was the most time he had spent with another human in almost three years. He kept having to remind himself not to snarl every time Lorne asked him a question.

Luckily, Lorne didn’t seem bothered in the least by his inability to socialize like a normal person. It wasn’t that the guy was oblivious to it, but he just seemed to let John’s poor behavior slide off him like water over a duck. John figured it was probably a park ranger thing. Lorne had probably dealt with hundreds of difficult park visitors and knew how to keep a calm facade. 

And calm he was. Maybe too calm. Even when he’d shown up that morning, freaked out about what he’d seen, there had been a certain zen about him. He had jumped both feet into “aliens are real” and barely batted an eye, just accepted it and moved on. In fact, he’d practically flirted with the waitress when they were ordering their food. John had certainly not been so cavalier when he had first encountered the aliens.

“So,” Lorne said, dumping some cream into his freshly topped-off coffee. “What’s the next step?”

Ah, so that was it. He expected that now John was going to take the lead on this, tell him what to do. “No idea,” John answered, taking a sip of his own black coffee. “You’re the one who wants to find this kid.”

“Well, how do you usually go about finding the Shadows?” 

John shrugged. “I just go someplace random I haven’t been before. Sometimes I spot them, sometimes I don’t.”

“Very helpful,” Lorne quipped dryly. “So where haven’t you been?”

“Lots of places. It’s a big park.”

The waitress returned with their food, setting the plates down and asking if they needed anything else. “Do you have a park map?” Lorne asked her, gesturing towards the brochure rack near the front door.

“Sure thing,” she answered, retrieving one for him.

“Thanks, Maya,” he said with a smile that made her blush. Good Lord.

Lorne laid out the map on the table between them, scooting his plate to the side. “Okay, show me all the places you’ve seen them,” he ordered, handing John a pen.

John started marking off areas where he had seen the Shadows (he kind of liked the name Lorne had picked for them and wondered why he had never thought of it). He had a map like this back at home, except more detailed, but didn’t need to refer to it. He had it memorized.

“Wow, so you’ve seen quite a bit of them,” Lorne said as John finished marking up the map. There were 42 little X’s. 

“It’s been three years,” John reminded him. And he hadn’t done much else with that time, he didn’t add.

“Right.” Lorne studied the X’s, frowning. Probably looking for a pattern. 

John let him try and work it out while he ate his omelet. He had spent hours upon hours staring at his map back home, trying detect a trend. Every time he thought he might be on to something, he was wrong. The Shadows never showed up where he expected them to be. He had found that he had more luck finding them if he just pointed to a random spot on the map and went than if he tried to follow any sense of rhyme or reason.

After about ten minutes, Lorne grunted. “Huh.”

“Yeah, doesn’t really make a lot of sense,” John said, pushing his now empty plate aside. It had been decent food. 

Lorne was still studying the map intensely. “Well, no. But it kinda feels like it should for some reason.” He rubbed a hand over his face and went back to his sandwich. “I don’t know. Probably just tired.”

Now that he mentioned it, the guy did look a little sleep deprived. John hadn’t really noticed before. Maybe this impromptu investigation shouldn’t last all day. 

“You wanna go home? Pick it up tomorrow?” John asked, not sure if that’s what he even wanted to do at this point. The discovery that someone else was seeing these things too was making him all the more motivated to get out there looking for them.

“No,” Lorne said firmly. “I need to find this girl. No one else is looking in the right place.”

“Alright,” John agreed, finding he was relieved that they weren’t giving up right away. He suddenly had a renewed energy to go hunt for the things. “How about this; I was going to head up to Eureka Peak anyway. You can tag along if you want.”

“Why there?” Lorne asked, eyeing the map to compare the spot to the other X’s.

“Because I haven’t been there before,” John said with a shrug. “And I’m in the mood for a long hike.”

“That’s pretty far from Titus Canyon,” Lorne pointed out. “You really think the Shadow could travel that far overnight?”

John blinked. “It’s an alien. Why not?”

Lorne shook his head. “Yeah, sure. I guess you’re right.” He dropped some cash on the table to cover the tab. “Lead on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: Rainbow Canyon, also known as Star Wars Canyon, is an area in DEVA that was used to film the fictional planet Tatooine. Air Force and Navy pilots often use this area for training runs. Photographers and enthusiasts hang out at the rim of the canyon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the different types of aircraft that fly through.


	4. Chapter 4

_He stood in front of the shimmering puddle, waiting to step through. He could feel the gentle buzz of it in his mind, a soothing noise, like a mother humming a lullaby. He reached out a hand to touch the liquid, except it wasn’t liquid. It felt like electricity, tingling over his skin in waves. Excitement built as he prepared to walk into it, even though he didn’t know where he would go. It was like a game, stepping through to see what wonders lay on the other side. He lived for this. Smiling, he stepped into the blue horizon._

_He was standing in a room filled with people; men, women, and children all packed so tightly that he couldn’t move. There had to be hundreds of them, smashed together like sardines in a can. Strangers, dressed in unfamiliar clothing._

_They spoke to each other with hushed voices, nervous whispers hanging in the air, like they were waiting for something to happen. Mothers shushed crying babies, bouncing and swaying them unconsciously while their eyes scanned the stone walls. He had been here before, hadn’t he? He was supposed to be doing something._

_The people at one end of the room began to grow louder, their voices protesting something he couldn’t see. More joined in, and people began to move, pressing in on each other. The volume quickly increased into screams of outrage, the sounds rippling through the crowd as they began to panic._

_He grabbed on to a man who was pushing past, herding women and children back behind him as he went. “What’s happening?”_

_The man shook off his hand in annoyance. “They’ve come for the children,” he said, as if that should have been obvious, and then continued to push his way forward._

_He followed after the man, snaking through the crowd as best as he could. “Who?” he called after him, but the man was too far to respond._

_He saw for himself soon enough. The dark Shadows, moving through the room like ghosts. He saw one reach out for a child, the black hands wrapping around the boy’s arms as he tried to hide behind a woman. The boy, who must have been five or six, screamed in terror and pain and then... Dissolved. The woman cried out in agonized grief._

_He gasped, frozen in place as he felt the shock and horror roll over him._

_The Shadows advanced through the crowd, glaciers inching forward and taking hold of every child in their path, consuming them as parents fought to wrench them away. But they were unstoppable. A force to be reckoned with._

_And then he saw her._

_Hope._

_She was in the arms of a woman, not far from him. The Shadows were growing closer as the woman tried in vain to push her way back, clutching the tiny girl against her chest._

_Panic boiled within him as he fought harder against the rioting crowd. He had to to rescue her. “Hope!” he cried out._

_The girl’s head turned, her wide green eyes falling on him. Her face lit up as she grinned at him, too young to understand the danger._

_The Shadows were so close; he couldn’t let them take her. He pushed forward more desperately, eyes never leaving hers. He couldn’t save them all, but he could save this one child. Focusing on that singular goal, he managed to squeeze past the chaos around him. Just a few more feet._

_Hope reached out toward him. He was so close...._

_A Shadow stepped between them, its icy presence cutting him off. Its inky black eyes bore into him, stealing his breath. Paralyzed, he was transfixed by the swirling darkness._

_And then he heard a voice. Or rather, felt it, striking him like a bolt of electricity, sending sparks of pain through every nerve as the words vibrated through him._

_“Where is it?”_

“Hey! Wake up!”

Evan jolted upright, adrenaline pumping as a hand shook his shoulder. He shivered, disoriented and cold, as he tried to get his bearings. He was in a car, and Johnny Cash was playing over the speaker. The hot sun was glaring in the window, thawing the ice in his veins. Next to him, Sheppard was eyeing him with what could possibly be interpreted as concern. 

Shit. He’d fallen asleep.

He scrubbed his face with his hands, half in an effort to wake himself up and half to cover up his embarrassment at having to be woken from a nightmare. He hoped he hadn’t been screaming. “Sorry,” he murmured, dropping his hands. “Bad dream.”

Sheppard still had a strange expression on his face. Evan couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking. After a moment, he asked, “You get those a lot?”

Evan shook his head. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d dreamed before this week. “Just since Hope went missing,” he said. 

There was an awkward silence as Sheppard chewed on his lip thoughtfully. “What was it about?” 

Evan studied him, surprised by the question. Sheppard had made it very clear that he didn’t talk about personal stuff, and yet here he was asking an extremely personal question. Evan wasn’t sure how to respond.

Sheppard sighed when he didn’t answer, rewording his question to be less intrusive. “Was it about the aliens?” he amended.

Evan watched the landscape pass. “Yeah,” he admitted. That wasn’t surprising; who wouldn’t have nightmares after running into one of those things?

Another pregnant pause. “I get them, too.”

Evan turned back to look at him in surprise. Was he trying to... _Relate?_ Realizing he was gawking, he shifted his gaze back to the window. That had been unexpected. But maybe the bad dreams were related to the Shadows, would help them in their search. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “It’s so vivid,” he said, studying the wispy clouds floating by. “So real. Except it doesn’t really make sense.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed. “In mine, there’s this big swimming pool thing standing up on its side.”

Evan snapped his head back around to Sheppard. “Like a puddle?” he asked, his heart jumping. “Except it’s not really water?”

Sheppard frowned. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“It’s in my dream, too,” Evan confessed. How were they dreaming the same thing?

The silence returned as they mulled this over. 

“It’s gotta be a coincidence, right?” Sheppard said. “It’s probably from a TV show we’ve both seen or something.”

Evan shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’re already dealing with aliens and superpowers. Why not dream about the same thing? Especially if it’s connected to the aliens.”

“Superpowers?” Sheppard asked, looking confused.

“The Force,” Evan explained. Sheppard still didn’t get it. “Your ability to sense the aliens.”

Recognition dawned on Sheppard’s face. “Huh, never thought of it that way, but it kinda fits.” A crooked grin spread across his face. He apparently liked being compared to Luke Skywalker.

Evan rolled his eyes. The man was like a child. “Do you dream about spaceships, too?”

“No,” Sheppard said, the smile dropping from his face. “What kind of spaceships?” There was a hint of jealousy in his voice.

Okay, so there were some similarities between the dreams, but not completely the same. “Not as cool as X-wings,” Evan promised. He watched the passing landscape for a while longer. “Do you know where you’re going?”

Sheppard gave him an incredulous look. Okay, stupid question, apparently. But now that he was thinking about it, he had only hiked Eureka Peak a couple times before, a while ago, because getting there was such a pain. The roads weren’t great, only passable by four-wheel-drive, and could be confusing if you didn’t know exactly where to go. He would rather not get lost out here.

Not to mention, September in Death Valley was still hellishly hot, and this wouldn’t be an easy hike. Evan had thrown some water and a couple granola bars into his backpack before they left, more as an excuse to inconspicuously bring his gun than anything, but hadn’t brought the normal gear he would usually take on this type of hike. The park ranger in him was telling him that maybe they shouldn’t head out on a difficult hike on a whim. He hadn’t even told anyone where he was going, and he doubted Sheppard had either. This was exactly how people ended up dead.

But maybe Sheppard didn’t actually plan to hike to the peak, just hang around the area for a bit. The man was a former Air Force officer, surely he knew a thing or two about heat exposure. Evan had noticed a pack of water bottles behind the driver’s seat, which was something everyone who lived out here with half a brain kept in the car. So at least there was that.

The roads got rough, and Sheppard wasn’t shy at all about plowing right along without slowing down, dodging and weaving and grinning like he was playing some kind of video game. Evan wasn’t prone to carsickness, but the fact that he wasn’t the one driving made the up and down and sideways motion nauseating, and he spent most of this portion of the trip gripping the handle on the door and staring at the horizon in an attempt not to hurl. He was excessively relieved when they finally pulled into the abandoned parking area.

Apparently, he needn’t have worried about his lack of preparation for hiking, because the back of Sheppard’s pickup was loaded with gear. Enough for a multiple day backpacking trip up into the mountains. Actually, it kind of looked like he was prepared for the zombie apocalypse with all the stuff he had back there. He offered Evan more water and a couple MRE’s. It was a long enough hike that he planned to camp at the top and hike back in the morning. 

“I only have a one-man tent, but I’ve got an extra tarp,” he offered, stuffing the gear into his pack.

And probably no back-country permit, but Evan didn’t ask about it. He also didn’t ask about the handgun Sheppard pulled out of a lock-box in the back of the cab. He had already gone rogue, might as well just forget about being a ranger for a couple of days. Plus, for whatever reason, he trusted Sheppard.

“So what are you planning to do if we actually spot these things?” Sheppard asked, slinging the pack over his shoulder.

That was a good question. He’d thought about it a little bit during the drive, but hadn’t come up with anything. When he’d seen the one yesterday, it had disappeared too quickly for him to react. “What do you usually do?” he responded.

“Shoot them.”

“And that works?”

Sheppard shrugged. “Not yet.”

Even though it was late in the afternoon now, the temperature was still over 90°, which made climbing slower as there had to be frequent stops for water. But they still made good progress. They didn’t talk much, which was fine because Evan was preoccupied with searching the rocky slopes for Shadows and thinking about how insane his life had become in the last 24 hours. 

Dusk was settling in by the time they neared the peak, and Evan was beginning to worry that he had wasted his time following Sheppard’s hunch. They had yet to see anything resembling one of the Shadows. Sheppard seemed unconcerned; he had said that he didn’t always spot them and that the more he looked for them the less likely he was to see one. 

There wasn’t a lot of vegetation around the trail, not that there was a lot anywhere in the park, so visibility was good even as the atmosphere darkened with the setting sun. Evan wondered if they should settle in for the night soon, but Sheppard continued to press on.

He was debating whether or not to say something when Sheppard halted unexpectedly, squinting at something in the distance. 

“What is it?” Evan asked quietly, trying to spot whatever he was looking at. He couldn’t make anything out.

Sheppard glanced at him as if he’d forgotten he was there for a minute, which he likely did given they hadn’t said anything to each other in over an hour. “Can’t see them yet. But they’re over there.” He took out his gun.

Evan followed suit, though he wasn’t entirely convinced that guns would be effective based on Sheppard’s earlier assessment. He wasn’t going to let these monsters get away either. He needed them to lead him to the girl.

They picked their way off the trail and towards the area that Sheppard had indicated, keeping their eyes open for the Shadows as the twilight deepened. Evan began to feel that gnawing sensation in his stomach again, and the cold sweat he’d experienced the previous evening when he had run into one of these things. Okay, so maybe he could sense them.

There wasn’t a good path across the steep mountainside, and Evan thought longingly of his climbing gear back in his Jeep. That wouldn’t help them now. Sheppard had already started across the hazardous space, seemingly unbothered by the precarious height. Evan tucked his gun into his waistband and scanned the rock face for handholds, determined he was going to rescue this girl no matter what, and followed.

As he scaled the rocks, he caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye, and even though he had been expecting it, he almost lost his grip. The thing moved so unnaturally, like some kind of optical illusion. His brain couldn’t figure out how it was getting from one place to the other.

He tried to see if it was holding something this time, but it was still too far away. Sheppard motioned for Evan to follow him onto a flatter outcropping and then crouched with his gun drawn.

“Can you see if it has the girl?” Evan whispered, kneeling next to Sheppard.

“Can’t tell,” Sheppard said. “You go in from this side, I’m going to sneak around behind it.” He indicated the direction he intended to take and then added emphatically, “Don’t shoot me.” Without waiting for a response, he took off, scaling the mountain to climb beneath the Shadow.

Evan hesitated for a minute, giving Sheppard a head start, before he began his journey toward the creature. The light was fading fast now, and he had to keep his eyes on the thing or he was afraid he would lose it, which made climbing across the rocks difficult. As he got closer, he could see that the Shadow’s arms were empty. His heart dropped in disappointment. Where were they hiding her?

Somehow, Sheppard had managed to get on the other side of the thing without making a sound or being seen at all, because Evan didn’t even notice he was there until he suddenly popped up from behind a boulder with his gun out. He was only about ten feet away from the thing now. “Don’t move,” he growled.

Evan hurried to get in place on the other side with his own gun trained on the alien. “Where’s the girl?” he demanded.

The alien froze, slowly turning its terrible gaze from one to the other. Evan felt like he’d been drenched with a bucket of ice water when the thing looked at him. He could hear that sound again, the buzzing whine, except this time it was louder, so much louder. It grew in intensity and pitch until it overwhelmed him, stabbing into his head and forcing him to his knees.

His vision blurred and he shut his eyes against the pain, only to find himself somewhere else. He was in a room with a stone ceiling and walls, and there were bottles and tubes filled with colorful liquids around him, like some kind of medieval science lab or something. In his peripheral vision he thought he saw Sheppard lying next to him, but when he tried to turn his head he was back on the mountain.

The flash had only lasted a mere moment. Before he could process what any of it meant, his brain exploded and everything went black.


	5. Chapter 5

_Golden sand swirled around him, stinging his eyes, filling his ears, tearing at his exposed face and arms. He covered his mouth and nose with his arm, trying to block it out so he could breathe. Squinting, he thought he could make out shapes like other people around him, silhouetted in the vortex. He tried to call out to them, but the wind stole his voice as soon as it was out of his mouth._

_He thought he could hear voices, all jumbled up in the dizzying maelstrom. They were screaming for help. They sounded terrified._

_Stumbling forward, he searched for the source of the voices, but he couldn’t find anyone. They were just out of reach. The wind was so strong, it threatened to knock him off his feet each time he took a shambling step. It blew one way, and then the other, pelting him with sand from every direction. Pressing against it, he kept going._

_The voices continued to get louder, their tempo increasing urgently. He could distinctly hear men and women and children, but he couldn’t find them. Calling out again, he thought he heard a response, but couldn’t make it out over the roaring tornado._

_A darkness began to creep across what he could see through the swirling sand, the sparkling crystals of dust turning to black, as if the sun was slowly being blotted out. As the light faded, so did the voices, until he was left in the darkness with only the howling wind to keep him company. The sand began to beat him harder, like thousands of needles against his skin._

_He continued his journey, feeling his way with timid feet now that he was unable to see. For how long he trekked through the darkness, he didn’t know, time had no meaning here. Until he could no longer feel for the vicious sand stripping away his skin, until he could no longer breath for the wind that stole the oxygen from his lungs. He could find no way out, no place of shelter, no one else to share in his misery._

_Tears wet his eyes, the sand mixing with them to seal his eyes shut, and he fell to the ground, bringing his knees to his chest and burying his face in them. The winds showed no signs of abating, and without the ability to see, he was wandering in circles. He needed someone to save him. To show him which way to go._

_But there was no one. He was alone. Without hope..._

John’s head pounded as he came back to himself, blinking his eyes open slowly. He could still feel the gritty sand in them, the sting of it fading from his face. The darkness that had been so overwhelming was now broken by thousands of glittering stars above him. 

“Sheppard, you okay?” a dark figure nearby asked, and it took him a moment to place it as Lorne. 

He sat up with a moan brushing himself off and hoping no critters had decided to crawl on him during his unexpected nap. “What happened?” 

“Not sure,” Lorne said. “We cornered the Shadow and then there was this God-awful noise and I passed out.”

Ah, yes. John had had a similar experience. He ran a hand through his hair, knocking the dirt out of it. “Damn,” he murmured.

“That ever happen before?” Lorne asked.

It hadn’t, not that extreme anyway. The noise wasn’t new, and it usually got louder when he got close to the Shadows, and sometimes he got dizzy for a second, but it had never been that intense. Certainly never to the point that he’d passed out. “No,” he answered shortly.

So much for progress. He had hoped that having another person would help catch the son of a bitch, but it had still managed to slip away. Damn, damn, damn.

He had dropped his pack back on the trail when they’d gone off climbing, but thankfully had the foresight to throw a small flashlight in his pocket because it had gone from twilight pitch dark, and the tiny sliver of moon wasn’t doing much to help light the tricky ledge they’d climbed over to get here. Flicking the light on, he searched the mountainside. He could still feel the eerie coldness of the Shadow, but the thing was long gone now. He cursed again, standing and looking for a way to get back to the trail.

“So, what, that’s it?” Lorne asked, his face betraying his frustration at the experience.

John was plenty irritated as well, but there wasn’t a whole lot they could do. “It won’t come back,” he said. “They never do.”

“So what do we do?” 

John shrugged. “Set up camp and pick it back up in the morning. Unless you want to try to climb down a mountain in the dark.”

Lorne didn’t look happy about it, but he kept his complaints to himself, unable to make a good argument for any other course of action. They picked their way back to the trail in silence, managing to not kill themselves on the steep drop-off. They hiked a little ways further until they found a good enough spot to camp without rolling down the mountainside.

“So what’s the deal with this kid anyway?” John wondered as they set up their makeshift campsite. It didn’t make a lot of sense to kidnap a toddler, but then again, he knew very little about the Shadows. 

Lorne glanced at him and shrugged. “Don’t know. She got snatched right out of the tent.”

Weird. “Why take a little girl?” he wondered aloud. Maybe they ate babies. He’d rather not think about that.

A heavy sigh from Lorne as he tied a rope onto a nearby tree to hold up his makeshift tarp shelter. “I don’t know. The whole thing doesn’t make sense. I mean, besides the whole alien aspect of it. I get this sense that I know this kid from somewhere. That she’s important for some reason.”

“Beyond the fact that your job is to find missing people in the park?” John asked, genuinely curious. The more he got to know about Lorne, the more he was realizing their experiences were eerily similar.

“It’s more than that. It’s like, the only thing that matters is that I find her,” Lorne confessed.

There it was; the same compulsion John had about the aliens. The reason he’d thrown himself completely into this fruitless quest for the last three years. John didn’t know if he was freaked out or comforted by the knowledge that there was another person just like him. One thing he did know, Lorne was headed down the same path he’d taken, and he would probably continue to drag John into it until he had what he wanted.

Reclining against a boulder, John opened his MRE. “I say tomorrow morning we head back and take a look at my research,” he suggested. Might as well put the guy to good use if he was going to insist on pushing this investigation along. “Could use a set of fresh eyes. Maybe you’ll see something I’m missing.” The latest encounter with the Shadow had already proved that Lorne’s addition to the alien hunt was changing up the status quo. Perhaps his presence would lead to some kind of breakthrough. Maybe after three frustrating years John would get an answer or two.

Lorne sat across from him eyeing the contents of his own MRE suspiciously. “How do you eat these things?” 

John took a large bite of his pasta. “You get used to them,” he said, and then smirked mischievously. “And I gave you the worst one.”

“Gee, thanks,” Lorne chuckled, picking at something that resembled chicken and rice.

Once he’d eaten, John turned off his light and leaned back to look at the stars. This was his favorite thing about being out here, just staring into the vastness of space and wondering what was out there. He had been the little boy who wanted to be an astronaut, the daredevil who climbed every tree just to be closer to the sky. Going into the Air Force had never been a question for him, he had to fly. And now that he was grounded, this was the closest he got to that feeling of freedom.

“Why do you call the Shadows aliens?” Lorne wondered aloud. John glanced over to see that he was also lost in the stars.

“What do you mean?” John said.

“Like, instead of ghosts or spirits, you refer to them as aliens. Why is that?”

Huh, he’d never thought about it before. He had always just assumed that they were. “Dunno,” he answered with a shrug. “Just seemed to fit best.”

Lorne continued to quietly observe the night sky, and John found himself wondering what the guy was thinking about. He must have been going soft, because he realized he was actually starting to like Lorne. Or maybe it was just nice to have someone not think of him as a raving lunatic for once.

His eyes turned back to the glittering stars above, tracing constellations and picking out planets he knew. Ursa Major and Minor, Cassiopeia, Orion just starting to peek out over the horizon. Once again he got the sense that there was something else out there, something that he was missing. He was sure the Shadows held the key. If only he could figure out what it was... 

“Well, I’m turning in for the night,” John said, breaking the silence. He’d spent three years trying to solve this mystery. It would keep for another night.

Lorne nodded but didn’t move. “Night.”

John tucked himself into his tent, hopeful that tomorrow Lorne might have some new insight into the questions that had been plaguing him for so long.

*****

Evan was glad to have actually slept for a few hours, even if he did wake up stiff from sleeping on the rocky ground. If the bad dreams had returned, he had been too tired to remember them. He lay there for a minute after he woke, letting his groggy mind drift. Had he really just spent the last two days chasing aliens around?

Sheppard was already up and packed, eating a granola bar and staring out at the sky still tinged with pink from the sunrise. He gave Evan a nod when he crawled out from under his shelter and threw him a water bottle. 

Evan would have preferred coffee, but he drank the water, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It was already getting hot, and while his head didn’t feel like it was being stabbed anymore, it still ached from the episode with the alien, so hydrating early was a good idea. They had a long hike ahead of them.

Sheppard didn’t seem too interested in chatting as they started down the mountain, which was fine by Evan. Moving woke him up a little more, but after three days of hardly any sleep, he felt half dead on his feet. Not to mention, he was lost in his own thoughts about the events of the last few days and was content to sort through it on his own for a while.

His mind kept replaying the flash he’d seen when the Shadow had appeared. The stone room had been similar to the one in his dreams, except smaller, but the color and grain of the rock had been the same. But Sheppard had never shown up in his dreams, and he had definitely been there in the vision. Maybe it was just because he’d spent all day with the man. But still, something about it bothered him. He felt like he was missing something obvious.

He tried to recall more details, but it had really just been a glimpse before he’d passed out. There had been glass bottles filled with liquids... Like some kind of weird science stuff or medical equipment or something. 

How did it tie in to the missing girl, though? The Shadows, the dreams about shimmering puddles and space ships, the stone room with the bottles... It was like he had all these pieces, and he knew that somehow they were supposed to fit together, but they were completely different pictures. What was he not seeing?

Maybe he was just going crazy.

It didn’t take as long to get down the mountain as it had to climb the evening before, so they made it back to the car by early afternoon. Evan braced himself for the drive out, which was just as bad as the way in the day before. 

As he was staring at the horizon, trying not to lose his granola bar breakfast, he caught a glimpse of something in the distance. It looked almost like a bird, but the thing was huge; much larger than any bird he knew of. Condors weren’t even that big, and he was pretty sure they were the largest birds on Earth.

“Did you see that?” he asked, pointing to the spot in the distance. 

“What?” Sheppard stooped down so he could see where Evan was directing his gaze out of the passenger window.

The thing, whatever it was, was gone now. “It was like, a bird or something,” Evan explained distractedly. He could have sworn he’d seen it somewhere before.

“Huh,” Sheppard said, focusing back on driving. He apparently didn’t care much about birds. The truck took a dip to the left and Evan clutched the handle tighter.

“Do you have to go so fast?” he complained, feeling the cold sweat break out and willing himself to not throw up in Sheppard’s car. If the guy didn’t slow down he might have to make him pull over.

Sheppard grinned, clearly enjoying Evan’s discomfort. “I like to go fast. More fun that way,” he defended.

“Yeah, tell that to my stomach,” Evan muttered, closing his eyes. Nope, that made it worse.

“Don’t puke in my truck,” Sheppard ordered with sudden concern, but he did drive a little bit more carefully.

“So what kind of other research do you have about the Shadows?” Evan asked, trying to take his mind off the rocking car. 

Sheppard dodged a large pothole. “I have dates and times from when I spotted them. GPS coordinates. There’s a couple of books and papers I tracked down that had some information that didn’t seem like total bullshit, but most of that has been a dead end.”

Evan wasn’t sure how he would find any of that helpful, but couldn’t hurt to take a look. The map of locations had definitely seemed familiar, so maybe something else in Sheppard’s research would jog a memory. 

He breathed a sigh of relief as they turned back onto a real road. “What are the books about?”

“Aliens,” Sheppard answered, as if that should be obvious.

Evan shook his head in bemusement. He liked Sheppard. “Yeah, figured that part out. What do they say about them?”

“Oh, there’s one about how the pyramids were actually landing sites for alien spaceships.”

“That... doesn’t sound related to this at all,” Evan observed.

Sheppard winced. “Yeah, but it feels like it makes sense for some reason.”

Evan watched the desert roll by out the window. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What?” 

“That all of this is just based on gut feelings. Like, you just pick random places in the park and the Shadows sometimes show up. _I_ feel like if I can find them, I’ll find Hope. There’s no logic to it.” 

Sheppard considered this for a moment. “Sure, it bothers me. But I don’t think it’s random. We’re just missing something.” 

Something caught Evan’s attention out of the corner of his eye before he could respond. It was that large bird thing again, off in the distance. He frowned, squinting to try and make it out, but it was still too far to see clearly. Speaking of random impulses... 

“Hey,” he said, “turn here.”

Sheppard glanced at him. “What?”

“Turn here!” he repeated emphatically, making Sheppard slam on the breaks just in time to make the turn, kicking up a dust cloud behind them.

“Why?” Sheppard asked, straightening out the car after nearly careening off the road.

“Do you see that?” Evan asked, pointing to the bird-thing. It dipped below the horizon again.

“No,” Sheppard said, searching for whatever he was supposed to be looking at. “I don’t see anything. What are you talking about?”

Evan nearly growled in frustration. Why did it keep disappearing? “Just...” He sighed, not sure how to explain. “Trust me. We need to go this way.”

Sheppard gave him a sideways look, furrowing his brow, but kept driving. “Thought you didn’t trust gut feelings.”

“Yeah, well,” Evan started, but didn’t finish the thought. He wasn’t an impulsive person, and it did bother him that this alien hunt seemed to defy the logical analysis that he usually used to make decisions. He liked rules, that’s why he had gone into law enforcement to begin with, but he could be flexible and think on his feet when he needed to. And right now, he just knew he had to follow this thing.

“Do you have any idea how far we’re going?” Sheppard said, sounding slightly irritated, but not enough to veto the sudden change of plans. “I might need to get gas.”

It turned out, they were going quite a ways. Every time Evan thought the bird thing had disappeared, he caught sight of it again, but of course never long enough for Sheppard to see what he was talking about. Yet, for whatever reason, the man went along with it and only complained a little bit. 

At one point in the mid afternoon they stopped to get gas and eat something, but otherwise they drove straight through. By then, they were leaving the park, headed east. 

“Still don’t know where we’re going?” Sheppard asked for the tenth time.

Evan started to shake his head, but caught sight of a roadside sign and suddenly knew that’s where they needed to be. “Devil’s Hole,” he said confidently. 

Devil’s Hole was located in Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, which was a detached unit of Death Valley. It was a cave system and was home to some endangered fish, but that was about all Evan knew about the place. Why he needed to go there now, he had no idea. 

Sheppard frowned. “You sure? I’ve never seen them outside the park.”

“Trust me,” Evan said, though he had no argument for why he should.

Yet for some reason, Sheppard did.


	6. Chapter 6

Devil’s Hole was out in the middle of nowhere, and not a popular spot today judging by the one other car in the parking lot. The sun was low in the sky by the time they pulled in, though the heat still came off the ground in waves.

“Alright,” John said, turning off the truck. “This is the part where you tell me why we came all the way out here.”

Lorne claimed he had been following some kind of large bird, which John had never even caught a glimpse of. He would have called the guy crazy, except that would basically be calling the kettle black. Whatever, he could entertain a wild goose chase. Lorne had earned that much, and it’s not like John had anything better to do with his day. Or his week. Or his life. Really, this was probably healthier than hanging out chasing aliens by himself. At least he was being social.

The look Lorne gave him now did not instill much confidence that he had any clue what he was doing. He opened his mouth, probably to say as much, but was cut off when something _huge_ swooped over them, so close that the pressure of the moving air rocked the car. 

“What the hell was that?” John exclaimed at the same time that Lorne pointed and gave a triumphant yell.

Okay, so there _had_ been a large bird thing. Except, as John got a better look at it rising into the air in front of them, it wasn’t a bird at all. It looked like some kind of prehistoric creature. Like a dragon.

“Shit,” he breathed, watching the thing beat its massive wings, flying straight into the blinding sun in front of them so he couldn’t see it anymore. That thing was definitely not from Earth. Another alien? But where had it come from and why was it just showing up now?

Lorne was already hopping out of the car and taking off after it across the flat, dusty plain. John briefly considered whether it was wise to chase such a large and, quite honestly, terrifying-looking creature, but he grabbed his gun and followed.

As John ran across the desert after Lorne, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu creep over him. Something about this creature... Maybe he had seen it before somewhere? But he couldn’t remember ever having encountered an honest to goodness dragon before, and that’s not something you just forget about.

“Dammit!” Lorne shouted ahead of him as he jogged to a stop. “Where did it go?” 

John searched the horizon as he caught up, but there was no movement across the pink sky. The dragon had disappeared again. 

“What was that thing?” John demanded.

“I don’t...” Lorne kicked at a nearby rock in frustration. “I can’t remember. None of this makes any sense,” he snapped, kicking another rock. “And I’m running out of time. Hope is running out of time.”

John kept forgetting that there was a ticking clock now, used to his own slow progress from his years of searching. But Lorne was right, the girl didn’t have forever to wait for them to figure out what had happened to her. “Maybe it’ll come back?” he offered. The thing had been appearing and disappearing all afternoon. 

“Maybe,” Lorne answered grimly, still looking toward the sun, which was now dipping behind the horizon. “Not sure what we would even do if it did, though.”

He had a point. It wasn’t like a handgun was going to do much damage to a thing like that.

Turning abruptly, Lorne started walking back toward the path that led to the main attraction, his jaw set in determination. “Let’s go see if this cave leads us to anything,” he called over his shoulder. “Maybe this won’t be a total waste.”

The actual cave was closed off to visitors by a fence, a sign claiming it was a fragile ecosystem that needed to be protected, but, of course, Lorne had a key and let them in. It wasn’t long before they reached the hole in the side of the cliff dubbed Devil’s Hole. It really was more of a hole than a cave, and not the kind you could climb into without gear. From the signs back on the path, John knew it was full of water, too. For the endangered fish.

“There’s something about this,” Lorne said as they looked out over the opening. He held a hand to his head as if it ached. “Something important. It’s right there, but I can’t remember.”

John knew the feeling well, though he wasn’t getting it as strongly now as he sometimes did. Maybe he was just used to the constant nagging in the back of his mind, that gaping hole that felt like he’d forgotten something of vital importance. Usually, he felt it the most strongly looking at the stars, though sometimes it was triggered by something else. Certain foods, songs, areas of the park. He waited for a few minutes as Lorne tried to work it out, getting impatient, and picked up a pebble to throw into the hole to see how deep it was.

He continued to chuck small rocks into the hole, watching them bounce off the sides before tumbling into the opening, until Lorne gave him a look. “You know that’s a fragile ecosystem, right?”

Rolling his eyes, he stopped mid-throw and crossed his arms over his chest instead. He felt restless, wanted to get going. The dragon hadn’t reappeared, and so far there was no sign of the Shadows, and he was hungry and tired and ready to get back to his house for the night. Lorne didn’t seem ready to move yet. 

“Is it something about the cave?” John prompted, hoping to move this along. “Or the dragon?” 

Steam was practically coming out of Lorne’s ears from how hard he was thinking. “Yeah, something about that. And the puddle, and the spaceship, and Hope...” He trailed off, closing his eyes in concentration.

“Well, I hate to say it,” John said after a few more minutes, “but it’s been giving me the run around for three years. The closer I think I get to the answer, the more pieces I find. It’s like an enigma that never ends.” He let another rock fly.

Lorne’s gaze turned slowly toward him, looking at John like he’d suddenly broken out into a musical number complete with a choreographed dance. 

“What?” John asked, freezing mid-throw. Was there something on his face?

“Endless enigma,” Lorne repeated slowly.

John didn’t understand what was happening. Had he said something offensive? Had Lorne remembered something?

But before either of them could say anything else, cold dread boiled up in John’s stomach. The Shadows were close. Lorne must have felt it too because he looked around for them.

They didn’t need to search far; two of the Shadows appeared on either side of them, popping into existence just a few yards away. The chill increased, sending a wave of goosebumps crawling from the soles of John’s feet to the tip of his head, and he barely suppressed a shiver. With a quick, fluid movement, he drew his gun and aimed it at the one to his right, seeing Lorne cover the opposite one out of the corner of his eye.

“Look who decided to join the party,” John said in a steady voice. “Tell us who you are.”

“What do you want with us?” Lorne added. 

The noise, which always accompanied his sightings of the Shadows, was growing louder, an off-key hum that grated against John’s brain like nails on a chalkboard. He felt the pain growing behind his eyes like it had on the mountain and squinted against it, telling himself he wasn’t under any circumstances going to pass out this time. 

The ice in his veins froze him in place as the black alien eyes bore into him, searching him, as if they were seeing every moment of his life; past, present, and future. _He knows where it is,_ a voice rumbled, vibrating through his body like thunder. _We have no further use for you._ Well, shit, that didn’t sound good. 

He clung to consciousness as the hum’s crescendo grew to tortuous levels, crushing his brain. His limbs suddenly felt like lead weights, and he struggled to keep his gun pointed at the thing. It was hard to breathe, hard to stand, and he felt an overwhelming sense of despair sweep over him as he lost the will to fight it. _Give up,_ the voice said. _Give us your life._

No. He wasn’t going to let these things kill him. He focused through the pain and crushing sense of doom, forcing his mind to claw through it and find a fresh breath of hope. He could do this. He ordered his finger to pull the trigger, distantly hearing gunshots as the Shadow broke eye contact. Gasping real air now, the spots cleared from his vision enough to see that he had fallen to his knees. Lorne was still on his feet, but hypnotized by the other Shadow.

He forced himself to move, staggering to his feet and shooting again at the Shadow as he reached his other arm out to grab Lorne and stumble back, away from the creatures. He couldn’t tell how effective shooting it was, it certainly didn’t seem to be taking the thing down, but it was at least buying him some time. 

Still dragging a dazed Lorne along, John continued to retreat away from the creatures, swinging his gun to the second one and giving it a couple of bullets as well before the gun clicked empty. The Shadows were already turning back toward him, so he chucked the empty gun toward them before pivoting and running, yanking Lorne behind him.

Lorne, still half in a stupor, got his feet clumsily moving to follow John. “S-something’s not right,” he stuttered, trying to keep up.

“Yeah,” John growled, glancing back as he kept running. The light was fading fast. “These things decided to kill us all of a sudden.”

Lorne shook his head, speeding up to match John’s faster pace as they raced across the open desert. “Not that,” he panted. “I don’t think this is real.”

What the hell was he talking about? “Sure as hell feels real to me,” John retorted, stopping short so that Lorne plowed straight into him. It was too dark to make out where the Shadows had gone, but he still felt them nearby. He searched around frantically for any sign of them. 

Gasping, Lorne shook his head again. “I don’t think they have Hope. I don’t think she exists.”

They needed to get out of here. John was very certain that the Shadows intended to kill him, had somehow been sucking out his life. All this time he’d been chasing them, and now all he wanted was to run away. “We don’t have time for your existential crises,” he growled, once again grabbing Lorne’s arm to haul him back toward the truck. If he didn’t believe the girl existed than at least he wouldn’t have a problem with leaving.

“Will you just listen?” Lorne complained loudly, but didn’t resist being pulled along. 

“Later,” John insisted. “I’d rather not die first.”

Lorne stopped arguing as the truck came into sight in the distance. John felt the cold prickle at the back of his neck again and cursed, spotting the Shadow out of the corner of his eye. Dammit, they were catching up. He ran harder. If he could get to the truck, he would be safe.

The grinding hum was getting louder again, his vision narrowing. John could hear his breath in his ears, his heart thumping as he stretched his legs toward safety. The Shadows were close, but they couldn’t get him, if he could just get there...

And then, the presence was gone. The noise, the cold, the terror in the pit of his stomach disappeared all at once. John stumbled at the unexpected release and jogged the last couple of feet to his truck, confused at what had just happened. They were going to kill him, he was sure of it, but now he saw no sign of them anywhere. His chest heaved, his body still recovering from... Whatever that thing had done to him. “What the hell was that?!” he exclaimed to no one in particular.

Lorne was catching his breath next to him, hands on his knees from the effort of sprinting full speed for so long. “This isn’t what you think,” he panted.

John finally stopped to look at him, noting his earnest expression. “What are you talking about?” he said, narrowing his eyes in irritation.

Lorne stood up to face him properly. “I think this is all a dream.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: That's the end of part 1! There will be a short break while I edit part 2, but hopefully I'll start getting it up this weekend or early next week. Thanks for sticking with it this far, and please review!


	7. Chapter 7

Part 2

_“Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.”_

_-Frank Herbert, Dune_

Teyla made her way to the locker room, ignoring the questioning looks of people passing by. She had no news for them, and was in no mood to be asked. She hoped her face reflected enough of the mission’s failure that they would not feel the need to discuss it with her, though each time she returned, she noted that their faces were less hopeful that she had found anything.

It had been fifteen days now. Two weeks since the visit to Elar, since Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne had disappeared without a trace.

She, like the rest of Atlantis, had hoped by now they would have some indication of what had happened, but the mystery remained stubbornly unsolvable. The two men were simply gone. One minute, they had been on their way back to the gate, talking and laughing about something Sergeant Jones had said, and the next they were waking up in a dead jumper minus two team members.

The trip to Elar had been more of a celebration than a mission, a ceremony to dedicate the newly rebuilt village after the last had burned down in a tragic fire. John and Evan’s teams had both worked closely with the Elarians, and had gladly accepted the invitation to the ceremony (and feast afterward). The Elarians had been good trading partners long before the fire, so maintaining a good relationship with them was important, not to mention they were excellent cooks and knew how to throw a party. In fact, the only one who hadn’t jumped at the invitation had been Rodney, who couldn’t stand the lengthy religious ceremonies they were known to have. He had made up an excuse about another project he needed to work on.

No one could explain what exactly had happened. The jumper hadn’t crashed, but it had lost all power and refused to start back up, even after Rodney and Radek tinkered with it for a week. No one else had been injured, and there was no sign that anyone had entered or left the ship. The only clue they had managed to uncover was that the Stargate had been activated between the time they had arrived on Elar and when they opened the gate to inform Atlantis of the incident. This had pushed the theory that the men had been captured to the top of the list, though there was no other evidence for this. Since they were the only two ATA carriers present, this could make sense (no one had forgotten about Major Lorne’s teams’ recent captivity by the Genii), though it could as easily have been that they had encountered an unknown Ancient device that had sent them into an alternate reality or turned them invisible or one of a thousand other possibilities. 

They had followed up on the kidnapping theory as well as continuing to search Elar for more clues. Atlantis sent teams out to contact allies and see if they had heard of anyone who may have wanted to capture them. Rodney had spent almost every waking moment either on Elar or searching through the Ancient database for some other plausible explanation. Neither path had led them anywhere but to frustration.

In the meantime, Major Baylor was acting as interim military base commander, and Captain Aberdeen had taken point on leading the search. They were competent and kept things running as smoothly as possible, but the longer the search came up empty, the more on edge everyone in Atlantis became.

“Any word, Teyla?” Lieutenant Laura Cadman asked, spotting her as she entered the women’s locker room. 

Teyla sighed and shook her head sadly. “The Bellinians have not heard of any ship with the capabilities to disable a jumper such as it did, nor have they heard of any ransom out for Lanteans.”

Laura didn’t bother to hide her disappointment. Teyla knew that she and the major were friends. “I’m headed out to M87-642 in a few minutes. Maybe the Charans will have some answers.”

It was doubtful, but Teyla smiled and inclined her head in agreement.

After dropping off her gear and stopping by the infirmary for her post-mission check, Teyla headed up to Elizabeth’s office. The mission to Bellinish had taken almost eight hours, and perhaps in that time there would be an update from someone else.

Rodney was already in Elizabeth’s office, talking a mile a minute and gesticulating wildly while the mission commander sat quietly with her elbows on her desk and her hands tented in front of her face. She was pursing her lips in a way that told Teyla whatever the scientist was telling her was not good news.

Catching sight of Teyla, Elizabeth waved her into the office. “Teyla, any news from Bellinish?” she asked, interrupting whatever Rodney had been saying.

Teyla shook her head. “Unfortunately not,” she said. “But they promised to contact us if they hear anything.”

Elizabeth nodded somberly. They had gotten that same message from about every planet they had visited so far. “Thank you for the update.” She motioned to the open chair next to where Rodney was standing. “Please, join us. Rodney was just giving me an update from his work on retrieving the possible addresses that might have been dialed between when you arrived on Elar and when Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne went missing.”

“Have you made any progress?” Teyla asked, taking the seat. 

“Well,” Rodney stuttered. “Yes and no.” He began gesturing again. “As I’ve explained a hundred times already, we don’t even know whether the gate activation was an incoming or outgoing wormhole, or how many times it was activated. And even if we did know that there was an outgoing wormhole, we can’t narrow down the list of addresses all that much. There’s no way to tell what order they were dialed in, so the list I already gave you is about as good as it’s going to get.”

“There are still hundreds of addresses on the list,” Teyla pointed out.

“Yeah, and it could be thousands,” Rodney defended.

“What about the work on the jumper, Rodney?” Elizabeth asked in a way that clearly said she had just been over all of this with him and was only asking him again for Teyla’s sake.

“That’s going nowhere fast,” McKay answered with a snort. “The jumper’s not dead, it’s like the gene activation switch had been turned off somehow. It has power, but it’s like a car without a key. No ignition, no way to turn the engine over. We’ve tried everything, but at this point I don’t think we’re going to get it working again. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Is that not the same as when John asks Atlantis to turn off his life sign so that we cannot find him?” Teyla asked. Everyone knew that Atlantis did John favors that no other gene carrier in the city could get away with, and that he liked to be able to disappear sometimes. Major Lorne was, in fact, the only one who could find him when he did this.

Rodney shook his head waving his hand to emphasize his words. “No, no, it’s not the same. This has completely removed the _ability_ of someone with the gene to operate it. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Atlantis doesn’t turn off his life sign, she just shields him from the life signs detectors. This is different.”

“So you are unsure of what caused it,” Teyla summarized, as she often had to do to clarify whatever Rodney was trying to tell her.

“Yes. I’ve never seen that kind of technology before. It doesn’t make sense that the Ancients would create technology to make it so they couldn’t use their own technology, but I have no idea who else would have that kind of ability either.”

“Have we found any reference in the Ancient databases that mention a race with this kind of technology?” Elizabeth interjected. 

Rodney snorted. “Well, yeah, probably a few. But they’re just obscure references. We don’t know where any of them are or even if they still exist. It would take weeks- no,” he flopped his hands dramatically at this, “months probably, to get anything conclusive on them.”

Elizabeth smiled tightly and said in that not quite patronizing tone of hers, “It’s a place to start. How about we make a list and start trying to figure out if any of them lead to anything.”

Rodney looked like he was going to object, but at Elizabeth’s raised eyebrows, he sighed and stood to leave. “I suppose it’s no different than any of the other wild goose chases we’ve been going on.”

Elizabeth chose not to comment on his retort as he left. She knew as well as Teyla how guilty he felt for not being there in the first place, and the frustration at the lack of progress in the search. Teyla had tried to speak to him on multiple occasions, to share her own feelings at having been powerless to stop whatever had happened and remind him that dwelling on such emotions did not help in finding their missing friends. Rodney handled things differently than she did, though. His inadequacies fueled him to action rather than paralyzing him with self-doubt. Unfortunately, as hard as he had thrown himself into the search, he had yet to find anything and it was taking its toll.

“Has Ronon returned yet?” Teyla asked, turning back to Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose in the way that Teyla often saw her do when she had a headache. Not surprisingly, the mannerism often appeared shortly after a meeting with Rodney. “Not yet,” Elizabeth answered tiredly. “They’re due back in a few hours.”

Ronon had accompanied Major Lorne’s team, Lieutenant Kennel and Sergeants Jones and St. Clair, as well as Doctor Zelenka back to Elar. They had given up on fixing the jumper, but there were valuable pieces that could be brought back to use for repairing other ships, so they had gone to harvest them. 

“Have you gotten any rest?” Teyla asked gently, noticing how exhausted Elizabeth looked.

She sighed and met Teyla’s gaze. “Some. What I could use is something to eat.” Standing and stretching, she closed the laptop that was sitting open on her desk. “Join me?”

Teyla nodded and followed her out of the office. 

“Chuck, I’m going to the mess for some lunch,” Elizabeth told the technician as she passed. “Please call me if any of our teams return.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, giving her a nod. 

The two women walked in silence for a bit, lost in their own thoughts. After a while, Elizabeth broke the silence. “How are you doing?”

Teyla took a deep breath, deciding how to respond. She was worried, and grew more so everyday. But this was not the first time they had lost friends, certainly not the first time they had lost John, and she still had hope that he would be returned. She did not know Major Lorne as well, but he had his own reputation for going missing and turning up again.

“I am concerned for them, but I am far from giving up,” she finally said. 

“I think that’s how most of us feel,” Elizabeth agreed. “The Marines are restless, but Major Baylor is doing a good job running things.” She paused, sighing heavily. “The _Daedalus_ is scheduled to arrive early next week, so Colonel Caldwell will be stepping in as temporary military commander.”

Teyla frowned at this, though it wasn’t unexpected. She respected the Colonel to a degree, but did not think he would fit well into the balance that Atlantis had struck among the military and civilian population. On top of that, Teyla knew that he and Elizabeth disagreed on how to operate the city, which caused a great deal of tension. In times he had come in the past, there had always been a sigh of relief once he left.

“I hope we find them before that becomes necessary,” Teyla said.

Elizabeth smiled at her assessment of the situation. “We are also going to have to start cutting back on our search and rescue soon, as much as I hate to do it.” Teyla met her eyes, and Elizabeth continued, “Just enough to resume our scheduled obligations. We won’t stop searching, but we can’t put everything else on hold for much longer.”

Teyla didn’t like this news, even though she was not bound by the same rules as Elizabeth and could continue her own search regardless. Atlantis had countless more resources than she did to aid them, but they also could not continue to look for two men forever. She understood, even if she did not agree. She wasn’t sure Ronon would take the news as well.

As they reached the mess hall, Elizabeth stopped and turned to her. “We are going to find them, Teyla,” she said gently.

Teyla nodded, blinking back tears she hadn’t realized were there. “Yes,” she said with a shaky smile. “I know we will.”

*****

Ronon leaned up against the side of the jumper, keeping an ear on the conversation inside while he habitually scanned the tree line for any movement. He wasn’t sure if he was looking for enemies or for Sheppard to suddenly appear, walking out of the woods and complaining about how he’d been sucked through another time dilation field. As expected, the only movement was the tall grass blowing in the wind.

“Do you want all these crystals, Doc?” Jones was asking from the open panel in the back of the jumper.

Zelenka, who was stuffed under the control console in the cockpit, leaned out to see what he was talking about. “Yes, might as well take them all,” he called back before burying himself in his work again.

They had already pilfered all of the gear out of the jumper earlier today, which left it a strangely empty husk. They had taken everything but the benches. Ronon imagined in a few years the thing would start to sprout weeds, and in a hundred years it would become some sort of odd relic, here to greet gate travelers upon their arrival to Elar.

“Ronon,” Zelenka said, catching his attention. “Would you mind handing me that wrench?”

There was a whole set of wrenches laid out on the bench in the back, and Ronon held up three before Zelenka motioned that he’d guessed correctly. 

“Looks like the Lieutenant and Pope are finally done listening to the Elarians apology of the day,” Jones reported, poking his head out of the back of the jumper to spot the two team members walking down the path from the village to where they were parked near the Stargate.

Ronon had been glad to avoid that duty today. He would have preferred the long walk to the village over hanging out with Zelenka while he dismantled the puddle jumper, but he couldn’t stand the Elarian platitudes the first time, let alone two weeks later. None of the Lanteans thought the Elarians had anything to do with Sheppard and Lorne’s disappearance, at least not knowingly, but the people felt responsible nonetheless, and therefore apologized profusely again and again.

Zelenka slid out from under the console when the two men arrived at the jumper. “Any news?” he asked, even though they all knew there wouldn’t be any.

Kennel shook his head. “Just the same. No sign of them anywhere.”

There was a moment of disappointed silence.

“Reska set up a prayer tower,” St. Clair added. “Wanted us to know.”

Ronon couldn’t remember exactly which one Reska was, but he guessed based on Jones’ reaction that she was the one whose kids they’d pulled out of the fire when their old village burned. The young Marine nodded solemnly, not revealing any emotion from his face, before turning back to his work.

Ronon had spent a lot of time with Lorne’s team these last couple of weeks. With both of their team leaders missing, the two units had become somewhat fused into one, especially with Teyla bouncing around to her many contacts and McKay splitting his time between Elar and scouring the Ancient database for clues. Ronon preferred to stay out of the city as much as possible, to keep himself busy with the search, and he could tell that Lorne’s Marines felt the same. The four of them had taken it upon themselves (with Doctor Weir’s blessing) to return to Elar almost every day since the incident, escorting the scientists and engineers who initially worked on the puddle jumper, searching the surrounding areas for any sign or anomaly that could explain what had happened, and doing the grunt work of stripping the jumper once it was declared unfixable.

Ronon hadn’t known any of them very well, didn’t even know Major Lorne that well and had spent the most time with him out of any of them, but he found the company of the three Marines comforting. They had a very different dynamic than his own team, but were obviously just as loyal to the major as he, Teyla, and McKay were to Sheppard.

“How much more have you got to do, Doc?” Kennel asked, wandering up toward the front of the jumper.

“Ah,” Zelenka responded, making a face as he worked at a piece that was stuck. “There are a few more parts I need to remove. Maybe another hour or so.”

“Can we help at all?”

Zelenka grunted as the piece popped loose. “Sergeant Jones is gathering the crystals from all the trays. You could see if he needs help with that.”

“Yeah,” Jones said, waving one of the crystals around behind him to indicate another panel. “Pope, take that one apart.”

St. Clair rolled his eyes at Jones but got to work on the panel.

Ronon had noticed Jones use the nickname multiple times, and that St. Clair seemed annoyed by it, but it must be one of those Earth references that he didn’t understand. “Why do you call him that?” Now that he was getting to know the Marines better, he was genuinely curious.

Jones snickered, and St. Clair sighed. “The Pope is a religious figure back on Earth. Jones thinks he’s clever because my last name has ‘saint’ in it, which is a term for another type of figure in that religion, except I’m not Catholic, so it doesn’t make sense.”

“Dude, you carry a Bible in your pack,” Jones argued.

“Yeah,” St. Clair retorted, yanking out the crystals with more force than was strictly necessary. “Because I’m Presbyterian. It’s not the same thing.”

Jones waved him off. “Whatever. Close enough.” He closed the empty tray he’d been working on and opened one underneath it.

Ronon had heard a few people in Atlantis speak about the various religious beliefs of their home planet, and found the nuances confusing. There were so many different sects that seemed to believe the exact same thing, except they disagreed so vehemently on minor details that they started wars with one another. In Pegasus, he had only encountered a handful of dominant theologies, but everyone fought a common enemy and so divisions among groups based on minor differences were unheard of.

“We don’t have a Pope,” St. Clair grumbled, but he let it drop. From his tone, he’d probably made the argument many times before.

“Ronon, you got religion?” Jones asked, glancing at him with interest. One thing Ronon had learned about Jones in the last couple of weeks was that he had no qualms in asking people about their personal lives. Nor was he shy in sharing details about his, sometimes against the wishes of those he was sharing with.

Ronon didn’t often speak about his beliefs, mostly because he wasn’t really sure what he did believe anymore. Back on Sateda, he had ascribed to the popular belief in the Ancestors, but more out of tradition than anything he personally held on to. After he lost the woman he loved, after being a runner... His faith had been all but lost.

He had no problem with those who wanted to believe in something, even admired them in a way. He understood that it brought them comfort during difficult times, and in the Pegasus Galaxy, there were plenty of those to be had. Since joining the Lanteans in the fight against the Wraith, his own faith had been restored somewhat, at least in the sense that he could believe there was some good left in the universe. But he didn’t know if he believed there was a higher power out there watching over them. That seemed a bit too fantastical for him.

He shrugged in response to Jones’ question, deciding to remain vague. People from Earth acted awkward when speaking of religion, though he had yet to see Jones feel uncomfortable about anything. “Many from my world believed in the Ancestors.”

“The Elarians were praying to the Ancestors,” Kennel said when he didn’t continue, picking up the crystals that the other two were piling on the floor to place them carefully in a bag. “They set up that tower and said it was to guide their prayers somehow. They kept saying something about Jehanu.” 

Ronon could sense his unspoken question. He was curious about the Elarians beliefs and who Jehanu was. He probably wanted to believe their prayers would help, was looking for some hope that everything would turn out alright in the end, some sign that they would find their lost team leaders. They all were. Even Zelenka had stopped his work to eavesdrop on the conversation.

And that, to Ronon was the most interesting thing about religion. When life was going well, people rarely thought about it. But when faced with a problem that didn’t have an easy solution, when faced with the inability to control what was happening, that’s when you came face to face with it. To either throw your faith on something outside yourself in the hope that it would save you, or to give up and accept that you were doomed. Ronon himself couldn’t make that leap, to trust that someone else would step in and rescue him from his problems. He had relied on no one but himself for so long. But just because he didn’t believe it didn’t mean it wouldn’t bring comfort to them.

“Most believe that the Ancestors watch over us, protect us,” he told them with a shrug. “There are a few legends about specific Ancestors, like Jehanu. They say that his wife and child were taken by the Wraith, and Jehanu crossed the galaxy searching for them. He searched for hundreds of years, but never gave up. They say the power of his love protected them all those years until he finally found them. So when someone is taken by the Wraith, some pray to Jehanu to protect them until they can be found. The tower has three pillars to represent Jehanu and his family.”

Sometimes, Ronon wondered if anyone had prayed to Jehanu for him when he had been taken by the Wraith. But who would have? There had been no one left.

“Like Saint Anthony,” Zelenka said respectfully. “Patron saint of the lost.”

Ronon was surprised by the comment. He hadn’t thought that Zelenka would be the religious type, had assumed he would be similar to McKay who claimed religion was for the weak-minded who didn’t understand scientific reasoning. But Zelenka was nearly as smart as McKay, and certainly not weak. 

A loud shatter broke the quiet moment as St. Clair dropped one of the crystals out of the tray he’d been emptying. “Sorry,” he apologized quickly, moving to clean up the mess.

“And then there’s Matt St. Clair, patron saint of butterfingers everywhere,” Jones sighed in exasperation.


	8. Chapter 8

“What do you mean, this is all a dream?”

Sheppard was staring at him like Scooby Doo had just pulled his mask off to reveal that he had actually been posing as the Shadows all along. But Evan was sure, well, mostly sure, that he was right. It made sense. Kind of. Didn’t it? 

No, he couldn’t second guess it. This entire alien hunt was built on impulses and gut feelings, and right now, his gut was screaming that none of this was real. “I mean, we’re not really here right now,” he repeated, not sure how else he could say it. “We’re dreaming all of this.”

Sheppard scowled. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes, it does,” Evan argued, his conviction growing as he embraced the crazy theory. “Think about it. We’ve both been having dreams about that puddle thing, right? Because _that’s_ the real world.”

“So because of one weird coincidence, you think we’re in the Matrix all of a sudden?” Sheppard asked, narrowing his eyes. “Seems a little far fetched, don’t you think?”

Evan let out a frustrated noise. “You’ve been chasing _aliens_ for three years!”

“Fine,” Sheppard conceded. “Maybe it’s not that that weird.” He considered the idea for a second and shook his head. “But if this is all a dream, why do I remember my entire life?”

“I... don’t know how it works,” Evan admitted. “I just know that something’s been off ever since Hope went missing.” He took a deep breath and bit his lip. “And then you said something that reminded me of a painting, and it made sense.”

Sheppard looked even more lost. “Huh?”

Evan winced, knowing this was a stretch. “It’s a piece by Salvador Dali called _El Enigma Sin Fin_ , or, roughly translated, Endless Enigma.”

Sheppard continued to stare at him like he’d grown a second head. “I don’t do art, Lorne,” he finally said.

Yeah, Sheppard didn’t seem the artistic type. That was going make things so much harder to explain. Evan searched for a way to bridge all the random thoughts that had suddenly cohered to push him into the conclusion that they were, in fact, in some kind of dream reality and make it sound plausible enough to not be dismissed immediately. “Dali is a surrealist,” he started slowly. “His paintings are weird; there’s all kinds of hidden images and representations and...” He trailed off before he rambled more, seeing that he was losing his audience. Get to the point. “Anyway, I studied Dali for a while,” he said dismissively, “and all his paintings have this distinct... I dunno, flavor, I guess. And that one, _El Enigma Sin Fin_ , in particular, just had this feel to it. And _that’s_ the feeling I get from this place.” 

Sheppard chewed on this for a minute. “This place, as in... Death Valley?”

“No,” Evan corrected. “It’s more...” He huffed, again grasping for what he was trying to say. “It’s hard to explain. It is the park, but it’s also just this _place_. It all feels, well, surreal,” he finished lamely. Yeah, real convincing. “It’s a lot of little things that are off somehow, but I can’t put my finger on it. And how I feel like I should remember things that I don’t. Or how things are familiar. Like you. I feel like I know you. Like we didn’t just meet two days ago.”

Sheppard was staring into space and nodding slowly now. “Yeah, I get that. But, a dream?” He scrunched his face, not buying it. 

Evan fumbled for another example. “Okay, so when the Shadows came and there was that noise, I had, like, a vision or something. But I think what happened is that I woke up for a second. And I was in this room, and you were there, too. At first, I thought it was just a dream, but now, I think _that’s_ the real world and _this_ is the dream.”

“Fine, let’s say we’re in the Matrix.” Sheppard still looked suspicious, but he was at least entertaining the idea now. “Then how do we wake up? It’s not like someone’s offering us a red pill.”

Good question. He needed more information about that other place, that other life. His real life, he supposed. It was all there, somewhere under the surface. Now that he’d realized this wasn’t real, it was starting to come back, just fleeting snapshots of the life that up until a few moments ago he thought had been some strange dream. But that was who he really was. Shaking his head, he let out a long breath. “No idea.”

Sheppard stared at him for another moment and then opened his car door. “I suggest we get out of here for starters,” he said. “If we really are in the Matrix, I have a feeling those Shadows might have something to do with it, and for some reason they’ve decided I’m expendable.”

The drive back to Sheppard’s place felt short after two days of aimlessly wandering the park. The entire way, Evan wracked his brain for more memories, but all he could come up with was a clear image of a small man babbling frantically in a language he didn’t recognize and standing on a balcony overlooking an ocean. He was getting a headache from thinking about it so much.

“I’m going to grab a shower,” Sheppard announced when they got back to his house. “You can hang out if you want. There’s a box of stuff over there, papers and maps and whatnot.” He indicated a box sitting next to an arm chair in what Evan supposed was the living room.

A shower wasn’t a half bad idea. It had been a couple of days, and Evan realized he should probably clean up as well. Except, none of this was real, so why would he need to shower? 

Things still didn’t make a lot of sense.

He flopped down in the chair and started sifting through the papers, wondering if maybe he should just go back to his place and get some sleep. He was exhausted, dream or not. Maybe he could piece it together better in the morning...

“Atlantis.”

Evan must have drifted off because the soft voice made him snap his head up and open his eyes. Sheppard was standing in the doorway, hair dripping, looking as if he’d seen a ghost.

“What?” Evan grunted, scrubbing a hand over his face and picking up the papers that had slid off his lap when he’d fallen asleep.

“Atlantis,” Sheppard repeated. “I remembered. Always did do my best thinking in the shower. I went to Atlantis through a Stargate.”

Stargate. An image of the shimmering puddle popped into Evan’s mind, pushing away the last of his grogginess. Yes! It was called a Stargate. And Atlantis was the city on the ocean he’d been dreaming about. And the spaceship, it was called... “Puddle jumper,” he said.

Sheppard’s eyes went distant for a second. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I was flying a puddle jumper.” He looked back at Evan. “And you were there. And... Teyla. And another guy. With dreads. Can’t remember his name...” He frowned. “Ronon!”

Evan nodded, the fuzzy memories flooding his mind. “We go through the Stargate to other planets.”

“Yes!” Sheppard said, face lighting up. “We’re explorers. And we fight these vampire-things. What are those things called?”

Evan had a clear picture of the things Sheppard was talking about, but he couldn’t think of the name. “You think those were the things that put us in here?”

Sheppard scrunched his face. “Don’t know. Doesn’t seem like their style. I think they’re more the ‘suck your life out first, ask questions later’ kind of guys. This seems overly-complicated for them.”

“Guess it doesn’t matter,” Evan said. They couldn’t do much with the information right now. “At least, until we figure out how to wake up.”

“Yeah, got any ideas for how to make that happen?”

Evan sighed. “Best idea I have is to find the Shadows again.”

“No,” Sheppard said firmly. “Those things want to kill me, and I’d rather not find out that dying in here kills me in real life.”

He had a good point, though it still made zero sense that the things had suddenly decided to kill him after all those years he had chased them. Wait, had they actually been in here for years? “I got nothing, then,” Evan admitted, trying not to think too hard about the time frame.

Sheppard snapped his fingers, a light going off in his eyes. “Wait, maybe that’s it. Maybe if it wasn’t them, maybe if it was me instead...”

Uh oh, Evan did not like where this was going. “Sheppard,” he said slowly.

But the man was already off to the kitchen. Evan hopped up to follow him and found him with a gun already in his hand (did he keep it in his bread drawer or something?). He turned toward Evan with a mixture of excitement and uncertainty on his face. “They always say if you’re about to die in a dream you’ll wake up,” he said, but his voice carried a hint of doubt.

Evan held out a placating hand, hoping to get him to think before he acted. He’d swung back and forth on thinking Sheppard was crazy these last few days, but right now he fit squarely in the loose cannon category. “Sheppard, just, wait a second, okay? You said it yourself, we’re not sure what will happen.” At least he seemed to have fully convinced Sheppard of his dream theory. Gotta look at the positives, right?

Sheppard gave him a tight smile. “Got any other ideas for how to get out of here?” 

Evan pursed his lips, searching for any other option, but came up empty.

“Yeah, didn’t think so.” Some unreadable emotion crossed Sheppard’s face as he held the gun to his temple. “Anyway, I’d rather be dead than stuck in here for an eternity.”

There would be no talking him out of this, Evan was sure of that. Flashes of some of Sheppard’s other reckless, self-sacrificial ideas flitted through his mind. If there was one thing he definitely remembered about Sheppard, it was his martyr complex. “You know what? I’m remembering something else about you,” he said, giving up on trying to reason with him.

“What’s that?” Sheppard asked.

“You always come up with the _stupidest_ plans.”

Sheppard smirked and then took a deep breath and pulled the trigger.

*****

_‘I hope that you have not led us falsely,’ Binator said._

_Skaladox, the least of the Nine stood tall before him. The plan had already been set in motion. There would be no turning back now. ‘I spent time among them,’ he reminded the elder. ‘They are unlike the others. Their altruism is great. They will come back, and not only bring it to us, but bring more like them.’ He let confidence color his words. The elder, out of all, should realize that prudence would bring them greater reward._

_Binator was silent for a long moment. ‘Yes, your point has been well taken, as shown by the vote. But I fear the strength in them. Especially in the one.’ His words were not bitter, as Skaladox had expected after his plan had been interrupted._

_Puffing out his chest a bit, Skaladox asserted, ‘They do not know, of that I am certain. They are arrogant. Even if they knew of us, they would underestimate our true power.’_

_‘Let us ensure we do not underestimate theirs,’ Binator rebuked sharply, his anger flashing hot and white. He had lost the vote, his grip on the group’s control had slipped. He would not allow his wisdom to be neglected._

_Skaladox wilted under the harsh tone. After all this time, Binator still thought him a fool. ‘I only mean to save us highest,’ he said humbly. ‘If these two have so much potential, imagine the others they will bring. We could live for many more years on that kind of energy.’_

_The storm of Binator’s rage subsided slowly. Even he could not argue with the logic. ‘You are still so young,’ was all he said, but Skaladox could hear the doubt behind his voice. He worried too much that the plan would not succeed._

_Skaladox held his tongue. He wanted to point out that Binator’s downfall was that he had always been too cautious, that without risk they would become extinct. But he didn’t say it. Binator knew it already._


	9. Chapter 9

Instead of his brain splattering across his kitchen, John woke up with a jolt, inhaling sharply, like he hadn’t taken a breath for a very long time. He felt... different. Was he finally awake? He could feel his chest expanding with each breath, could feel the solidity of the surface underneath him. Where was he? Coughing, he opened his eyes, squinting against the too-bright light.

Above him was a tan ceiling that looked like it was made out of some kind of sandstone. He could see some sciencey paraphernalia around him, but none of it looked familiar. It almost looked medieval, actually, glass bottles and tubes with different colored liquids in them. He was lying on a cold stone table, and when he tried to move he felt the familiar pull of restraints snugly fitted around his wrists and ankles, plus a strap over his chest and another above his knees. Not Atlantis, then. Panic took over for a second and he bucked against them, but forced himself to take a calming breath. He couldn’t waste time and energy; he needed to think.

Thinking was easier said than done. He was groggy, and besides that, he still felt like the John Sheppard in the dream, trying to prove aliens existed. Not the John Sheppard who had spent the last however many years living in another galaxy. But he was out of the Matrix now, in a place that looked completely alien. That proved it was all true, right? 

Raising his head to look at himself was a colossal feat. He felt sluggish and numb and his head seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. Seeing some kind of IVs connected to his arms, he realized the fuzzy feeling was probably drugs. 

He was dressed in something that resembled a hospital gown but otherwise naked, and he could see more tubes poking out from various places (including one that looked an awful lot like a catheter). His head dropped back to the table and he took another deep breath, trying to clear his head more. Something pulled at the side of his neck and he turned his head to the side painfully, feeling more than seeing another tube connected there.

His heart leapt as he caught sight of Lorne on a table next to him, strapped down and strung up with tubes in a similar fashion. Seeing him jogged more memories, of standing in a cell, joking about rescue. Walking into his office to pester him when he was bored. Endless hours of meetings and paperwork. It was like turning on a light in a dark room. Before he had been able to see the general shape of things, but now John actually remembered. Major Lorne, his XO in Atlantis. Of course.

John tried to call out to him, but all that came out was a breathy squeak that caught in his throat and made him cough again. He wondered how long it had been since he had used his voice. Judging from Lorne’s scruffy appearance, they had been here a while.

After clearing his throat a few times, he got a raspy sound to come out that sounded almost like the major’s name, but he received no response. Lorne was out cold. 

John squirmed in the restraints, the movement revealing how stiff he was. His attempts to break free were pathetically weak and uncoordinated. He felt like he was underwater, or maybe moving through wet concrete, his limbs reluctant to respond to the signals his brain was sending them. He had to get these tubes out, stop the flow of whatever drugs they were giving him. Sucking in a deep breath, he concentrated on pulling just his left hand free, gritting his teeth and groaning with the effort. Eventually he felt a jolt of pain as his thumb popped out of socket. He bit his lip to keep from crying out as he pulled his hand through the restraint. 

He waited a moment for the pain to subside before carefully wriggling his now throbbing arm up out of the chest strap. As soon as he got it free, he made quick work of ripping out the IV in his neck and the one in his right arm, using his index and middle finger since his thumb was now useless. One obstacle down, he let himself rest for a moment and catch his breath. That had required all too much effort.

Collecting himself, he got to work on removing the other straps, which proved difficult since his fingers didn’t want to cooperate and kept fumbling the latches. Once he got the chest strap off, it was easier to move and get a good angle at the other latches, and he soon had them all off, plus the other tubes removed (there had definitely been a catheter). He was trembling with exhaustion by the time he finished freeing himself, and he could feel blood trickling out of the wounds left behind by the various IVs. But he was out.

He popped his thumb back in place before moving to get up, waiting another minute for the pain to subside to a tolerable ache. His legs almost gave out when he rolled off his stone bed, but he managed to catch himself and hang on to the table while a wave of dizziness and nausea rolled over him. Blinking away the spots in his vision, he pushed off and stumbled the couple of feet across the room to Lorne. 

He didn’t hesitate to yank the tube out of the major’s neck, bracing himself against the table and forcing his heavy arms to obey him. The wound it left bled lazily. “Lorne,” he called, jostling his shoulder with his good hand. “Wake up.” His voice was incredibly hoarse but at least it was working now.

Lorne stirred but didn’t fully wake as John continued to remove the various tubes and restraints. Once he had them all off he tried again with more force, raking his knuckles firmly across the major’s sternum. Lorne winced and moaned, trying to move away from the pain. 

“That’s it. Open your eyes,” John encouraged.

It took a couple of tries, but eventually blue eyes blinked open blearily, drifting around the room in confusion before landing on John. Lorne tried to say something, but coughed and gagged instead. John caught his shoulder when he nearly rolled off the table retching. Or rather, dry heaving. Nothing came up.

“You okay?” John asked when he got control of himself again.

“I feel like shit,” Lorne croaked, prodding at the bleeding spot on his neck with a grimace. He looked like shit, too. Glancing at the discarded IVs and then back at John, he added, “What the fuck?”

John pursed his lips angrily. “Yeah,” he said, agreeing with the sentiment. This entire debacle was disturbing on many levels, and he was trying very hard to not think too much about it. Better to ponder it later, or maybe never. “Not sure what kind of kinky experiment we were part of here, but I say we don’t stick around to find out.”

He looked around the room for anything that might be useful and spotted a rumpled pile of familiar clothes in the corner. He shuffled over to them, using the table and then the wall to support his still weak legs, and began picking out his stuff and tossing Lorne’s to him. Surprisingly, their gear was piled up next to the clothes. Whoever had captured them must not have been too concerned about them waking up. 

“Sir, did you really shoot yourself in the head?” Lorne asked breathlessly, dressing as quickly as possible.

John somehow managed to get his pants on without wiping out and frowned at how loose they were. Clearly he’d lost some weight. He pulled the belt tighter. “You were the one who said that whole place wasn’t real.” 

“Yeah, but...” Lorne paused. “Extreme way to test it, don’t you think?”

John shrugged and tried to put on his shirt without lifting his dead-weight arms. “Worked, didn’t it?” At least, he hoped to God it had worked. This definitely felt real, but so had the last place.

The cobwebs began to clear from his brain as he got dressed, but his memories were still shuffled. It wasn’t that he couldn’t remember Atlantis, it was like he had memories of both that life and his dream life, and both felt real. He could assign some memories to one life or the other, and objectively know which were which based on that, but so many were murky. Could belong to either life. Not to mention the gaps of things he couldn’t remember at all, like names of people who he knew he should remember. It was disconcerting.

By the time he got his boots on, he felt slightly more steady on his feet, but his legs still didn’t quite remember how to walk. He leaned heavily on the wall as he checked his weapons. Still loaded. Hopefully still functional. He peeked out of the open doorway; the hall was empty.

“Where are we?” Lorne asked as he hobbled over to meet John at the door. 

“No idea,” John said. “Place doesn’t look familiar, but my memory’s still a bit iffy.” There were so many questions flitting through his brain right now. Who had brought them here? Why? Where were the rest of their teams? How long had they been here? How did they get out of this place and back to Atlantis? 

“Think anyone else is here?” Lorne had all the same questions on his face.

John bit his lip, brain still trying to sort through everything. “Maybe. Let’s take a look around, see if we can find anybody,” he decided. “Then let’s find the Stargate. I, for one, would really like to go home now.” God, he hoped there was a Stargate and they hadn’t been brought here on a ship.

He led the way out into the hall, keeping one hand on his P-90 and the other on the wall for support. Moving was definitely helping to loosen up his stiff muscles, but he still didn’t trust that he wouldn’t topple over at any second. The hall was long and lined with rooms on either side, open doorways in the uniform stone, and there was a layer of sand everywhere. They peeked into each one cautiously as they shuffled along, John checking the ones on the right side and Lorne on the left, but they were empty except for the sand pooled in the corners. The place looked like it had been abandoned years ago.

They made it through about half a dozen rooms before Lorne stopped him. “Sir, take a look at this.” John turned to see him leaning against a door frame and motioning inside with his P-90. 

Inside the room was what looked an awful lot like a skull, half buried under the pile of sand. Lorne entered the room and stooped to take a closer look. “It looks half fossilized,” he noted, looking up at John with a furrowed brow. “It’s got to be thousands of years old.”

“Creepy,” John said. He jerked his head to indicate they should keep moving and turned back to the hall.

They found more fossilized bones as they kept going, sometimes piles of them, and more rooms with stone tables and other stone formations that looked like they had probably once been something else, but had mostly deteriorated. The building was massive, there must have been hundreds of rooms, some small like the one they’d woken up in and some as big as a gymnasium. But they didn’t find any sign of anyone else, friend or foe, in any of them.

In one hallway, they found remains of what might have been some kind of metal bars in some of the doors. “You think this was some kind of prison?” Lorne asked, sharing a disconcerted look with John. 

“I think I would really like to get out of here,” John replied, the uneasy feeling he had about the place growing.

“Couldn’t agree with you more, sir,” Lorne said.

They turned another corner, and when John poked his head into the next room he froze. “Shit,” he breathed, the sight before him unmistakable.

“What is it?” Lorne moved across the hall to see what he was looking at.

In a heap in the middle of the room was a pile of skeletons that had to be babies and young children based on the sizes. Hundreds of them. John’s stomach clenched sickeningly, his imagination providing pictures he didn’t want to think about. All of those tiny bodies, stacked on top of each other...

“Oh God,” Lorne muttered, face going decidedly green. He turned away, not as successful at keeping his stomach from rebelling.

As much as his body didn’t want to move anymore, John had a burst of motivation to get as far away from this place as he could, as quickly as possible. He clenched his jaw, angry and sick and tired, and tore his eyes from the sight. 

After a few more turns, they finally reached what appeared to be an outer wall. “Look for a door,” John said unnecessarily as they moved along the wall. He prayed there would be one; he didn’t think he could last all that much longer before the need to collapse and sleep for a year overwhelmed him. Glancing at Lorne, he wasn’t surprised to see him struggling to stay upright as well.

John held on to the anger that had been building since he had woken up, using it to keep his legs moving. It was his responsibility to get them out of here. His job to get them home. He had to find a way out. If only he could find a damn door.

It was like someone had read his mind, or maybe he’d just gotten extremely lucky, because as he turned the next corner, he saw it. A door. 

The stone it was made of matched the stone walls, but there was a distinctive seam in a door-shape, so he assumed it had to be a door. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a doorknob. He felt along the seam, tried to push on it, gave it a few good kicks, but the thing didn’t budge.

“Well, that’s just rude,” he grumbled.

Lorne studied it with a frown. “Think it’s stuck? Or needs a key or something?”

John sighed, biting his lip as he tried to think of a plan. He still couldn’t think straight, either the drugs or the exhaustion or a combination of both made forming a plan ten times harder than it usually was. He started pushing on the door again. 

Even with Lorne’s help, it didn’t budge an inch. Maybe it wasn’t a door after all. “What if there’s a secret password?” Lorne suggested, also unwilling to give up on a potential way out. “Like _Arabian Nights_.”

“What, like 'open sesame?'” John asked. They both looked at the door hopefully, but nothing happened. 

“Worth a shot,” Lorne said with a shrug.

John sighed again, closing his eyes and sagging against the unmovable door in defeat. He was starting to think that whoever had captured them had left them here unguarded because they knew there was no way out. They were going to die here, their skeletons joining the others.

He wanted to lie down and quit, he was so tired, but something inside wouldn’t let him. He didn’t give up. Concentrating, he imagined how the door would open. Thought of the sound it would make, the stone grinding against itself, swinging aside to reveal the Stargate he hoped was waiting outside.

“Sheppard!” he heard at the same time he felt the door begin to move. He staggered back in disbelief, sharing a surprised look with Lorne. Had he just done that?

Their excitement was cut short as the door slid open and a tornado of sand attacked them.


	10. Chapter 10

Rodney McKay was no stranger to anger. Hell, his consistently high blood pressure proved that he would likely benefit from a stress management class or two. He was well aware that he didn’t handle it well, that he snapped too quickly at his colleagues and friends. And he’d been working on it, trying to learn to breathe before speaking. Not using words like ‘idiot’ and ‘useless’ so much when referring to his minions. But truly, sometimes he believed his anger was warranted.

Right now, for example, he thought he had every right to be as furious as he’d ever been.

He didn’t bother knocking, but flung the door of Sheppard’s (he refused to call it Caldwell’s) office open, the veins in his forehead pulsing. Caldwell and the two officers he’d been talking to, Baylor and something that started with an A, all turned to look at him, in an almost intimidating manner. Had he been less mad, maybe he would have reconsidered his impending tirade. As it was, he was ready to breathe fire.

“What kind of nonsense is this?!” Rodney demanded loudly, holding up his tablet and shaking it. “You didn’t put _any_ of the planets I requested on our schedule.”

“Doctor McKay,” Caldwell responded calmly. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re in the middle of-”

“No,” Rodney interrupted vehemently. “We’re going to talk about this right now. I want you to tell me why you won’t let my team go anywhere we requested.”

The two officers looked decidedly uncomfortable, glancing back to Caldwell for an indication of what they should do. He gave a little wave for them to stay seated. “Doctor, I believe you were at the senior staff meeting yesterday, so you know full well why I can’t approve sending you to the requested addresses. Your team was assigned your schedule for the next three weeks, and unless we receive new Intel I am not changing that schedule.”

“So, what, we’re just giving up completely then?” Rodney scoffed, his face growing hotter. “You’re not going to pursue my leads at all anymore?” He could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

Caldwell sighed and sat back in Sheppard’s chair (not _his_ chair), folding his hands on the desk. “Like we discussed in the meeting, we cannot continue to solely focus on a fruitless search.”

“And by that you mean you’ve given up,” Rodney accused, spitting the last words for emphasis. 

This irked Caldwell, just as Rodney had intended. “I have not given up, Doctor,” he answered with carefully controlled irritation. “But we have other obligations in this galaxy that cannot be ignored. We’re fighting a war here against the Wraith, and on top of that, there are threats back home, and we’re here to search for technology to help aid in that fight, too. That’s why we came to Atlantis in the first place. Every time we visit one of the addresses on your list, we have to go through the procedure for a new planet. Send a MALP, determine risks. Frankly, it’s been eating up our time and resources, and we don’t even know that they’re on one of the hundreds of planets left on your list. I still fully intend to keep looking for Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne, but we simply can’t continue with the way things have been going.”

Rodney was trying very hard not to tremble with rage. Objectively, he understood the points Caldwell was making, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t a power-hungry bastard. He had always wanted to be in charge here; he must be loving that not only did Sheppard disappear but his loyal sidekick as well. Now there was nothing in the way of him taking control.

He couldn’t even form words, couldn’t put his arguments into any kind of sensible speech. Instead, he just stood there fuming for another minute. The two officers were avoiding looking at either of them, and it pissed Rodney off even more that they wouldn’t back him up.

Caldwell’s face softened ever so slightly. “I am sorry that your friends are missing, Doctor McKay, and I promise you we are not going to stop searching. When we find leads worth pursuing, we will pursue them. But it’s been over a month of nothing. I think the best thing for all of us is to accept that we may never know what happened to them.”

No, Rodney was not listening to this anymore. He spun on his heel and stomped out of the office, slamming the door behind him. Caldwell could stuff his pity and his platitudes; he wasn’t interested. Maybe everyone else in Atlantis was ready to give up, but he certainly wasn’t. They were still out there, he knew it, and he wouldn’t give up until he found them.

His feet took him towards his quarters instead of back to his lab. He didn’t want to be around people, didn’t care if he was supposed to be working right now. He could work just as easily from his room and not have to pretend that he wasn’t enraged or deal with the nervous glances from people trying not to be obvious about watching his every move. If he had noticed them, then it must have been going on for a while, at least since Caldwell’s arrival. He wasn’t sure whether they were concerned or just waiting for him to crack. They would have to wait until a different day for their show if that was the case.

By the time he got to his quarters, Rodney had worked himself into such a fury that it took him three tries to open his door. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths to stop his hands from shaking and sat down at his desk, opening his laptop. If Caldwell refused to let them continue the search, then he would have to find a way to do it on his own. He needed a plan.

He could hack the computers easily enough, lock everyone else out until he was able to gate off world, and then erase the address so no one could see where he went. And he was fairly certain stealing a jumper wouldn’t be too troublesome. Flying it wouldn’t be much fun, he’d never mastered it and tried to avoid piloting as much as possible, but he could do it in a pinch. The problem would be taking out the guards. 

He figured he could convince Ronon to join him pretty easily. The guy _hated_ Caldwell, and Rodney could certainly use some muscle out there in the galaxy. It would be handy to have Teyla along as well, but she may be harder to persuade. Did he need anyone else? 

He was lost in the middle of writing a code to lock out the computers when his door chime sounded. Word must have gotten around about his outburst and now Weir had probably come to yell at him. He ignored it the first two times, not in the mood to talk to anyone and not really caring about getting in trouble for not showing up to work, but by the third ring he got up to answer it. 

“What do you want?” he shouted as soon as he opened the door, seething from the interruption.

“Rodney,” Carson said, eyes wide at the rude greeting. “I just came by to see if you’ve eaten yet.”

Was it lunch time already? He looked at his watch and realized that it was later than he thought. He had been working on his plan for a couple of hours now.

“Oh,” he said stupidly, his anger dissipating. He didn’t want to be around people, but his stomach growled at the thought of food. “Um, okay. Give me a second.” He went back to his desk to slam his laptop shut and stuff his notes into the drawer, his paranoia demanding he use caution just in case they had figured out what he was doing and this was some kind of ploy to get him out of his room so they could foil his plan.

“You weren’t in your lab,” Carson noted as they began walking toward the mess hall. “Is everything alright?”

Damn, he’d forgotten it was Tuesday. He and Carson always got lunch together on Tuesdays. He huffed a bitter laugh. “Oh, everything is hunky-dory. Apparently, everyone has decided that the search is no longer worth the resources, so we’re all just supposed to give up and get on with life as usual.”

Carson frowned. “I thought Doctor Weir said we would still send teams to the addresses on your list.”

“Tell that to Caldwell,” Rodney spat a little more loudly than he intended. A couple of people passing by glanced at him and he lowered his voice. “He just posted the new schedule and none of those planets are on it. He says it’s too time consuming and all that crap about how we don’t even know if they’re out there.”

Carson sighed, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Rodney. I know it’s frustrating.”

“Frustrating?!” Rodney squeaked, his voice drawing attention again. “It’s wrong and he knows it! He’s abandoning them to God-knows what fate, and everyone is just going right along with it!” He clenched his fists. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. After all Sheppard’s done for this place, to just...” He choked on the words and cleared his throat, adding, “He wouldn’t give up an any of us if the roles were reversed.”

Carson looked like he wanted to respond, but they had reached the mess hall and Rodney took off for the food line before he could. Grabbing a tray, he threw a few items on it, barely pausing to see what he was even getting, before slamming it down on an empty table and snarling at the group of biologists who were watching him from the next table. 

A few minutes later, Carson joined him, setting his tray down gently and lowering himself into his seat with another sigh. “Rodney, have you spoken at all with Doctor Heightmeyer?”

His entire team had been told to speak with the shrink after the first couple of weeks with no progress in the search, but Rodney had been putting it off. He didn’t need yet another person telling him to accept that Sheppard was gone forever and he just needed to move on. He glared at Carson in response to the question.

“You may find it helpful,” Carson suggested quietly. 

“I’m not going to give up, Carson,” he bit out through a mouthful of salad.

“Aye,” Carson agreed quickly, “and I’m not saying you should. But if you keep up like you’ve been going, you won’t be allowed off world anymore. You need to find a way to deal with this.”

Rodney stuffed more lettuce in his mouth and stabbed a couple of pasta noddles to prepare for his next bite. “It won’t matter,” he said between the bites. “They can’t stop me.”

Carson’s face darkened. “Rodney,” he said slowly, using his name half as a question of what he was planning and half as a warning that whatever it was, he didn’t approve.

Washing down the pasta with a slurp of water, Rodney leaned in conspiratorially. “Why bother with Caldwell’s ridiculous rules? He’s perfectly happy leaving Sheppard and Lorne out in the cold. I’m ready to take this thing into my own hands.”

Carson matched his quiet tone. “Aye, and destroy your career in the process. Think, Rodney. Is that what you want? To be kicked out of Atlantis?”

Rodney scowled at him. Of course Carson wasn’t on board with his plan. That’s why he wasn’t going to ask him to come along in the first place. The guy always worried too much about following the rules. “If that’s what it takes,” he snapped before taking another bite of pasta.

Carson’s face was a mix of emotion: anger, worry, even a little sadness, as he played with his food and thought about how he wanted to respond. He finally took a bite, chewed, and swallowed before saying, “Do you really think John would want you to abandon Atlantis on account of him? We need you here, Rodney.”

Rodney stewed over the last couple of noodles on his plate. Carson was right, Sheppard would be pissed at him for running off to find him rather than sticking around to protect the city. “Zelenka could handle things,” he muttered, but his resolve was already flickering.

“And if you did find him, what then? You would just come back and be reinstated? Everything back to normal?”

Rodney shrugged. He hadn’t thought about that part. If he did this, it was doubtful things would go back to normal, no questions asked. Even if he was successful, he would probably still be transferred back to Earth.

“Before you go making a rash decision like a daft idiot, let’s talk to Elizabeth again,” Carson suggested gently. “I don’t agree with Colonel Caldwell anymore than you do, but the man is not the devil. I’m sure we can work out an agreement to continue the search if we present it in a way he can see the benefit.”

Taking a deep breath, Rodney nodded. It would take a few more days to properly plan his coup anyway. “Fine. One more try.” He went to work on his dessert, a slice of apple pie, finally starting to calm down. Carson was good talking sense into him. “But I’m not sure I agree that Caldwell isn’t the devil.”

Carson gave him a look and he raised an eyebrow in return. “Did you see his new policy on writing AAR’s?” he argued. “And the one limiting the use of the puddle jumpers? Plus, the guy completely rearranged all the offices. Sheppard is going to be _pissed_ when he gets back.”

Carson chuckled, shaking his head. “Now tell me how that pie is. I was debating between it and the chocolate cake...”


	11. Chapter 11

Evan had to brace himself up against the far wall of the hallway so that the wind wouldn’t knock him off his feet. He threw an arm over his face to protect it from the pelting sand, wincing as the tiny grains stung his hands and neck. A hand yanked on his sleeve, pulling him towards one of the rooms behind him, and he gladly ducked behind the stone wall.

The sand and wind still poured in from outside, but he and Sheppard were somewhat protected inside the room. “Well, door’s open,” Sheppard quipped loudly over the roar of the storm.

Evan nodded, not feeling much humor at the moment. He had already only been staying on his feet by pure determination. It wasn’t that he’d expected the Stargate to be right outside the door; maybe he’d hoped for that, but things never actually worked that way. But a sandstorm? They would never be able to walk through that, let alone find the gate. It was impossible. “What should we do, sir?” He had to yell, the wind was so loud.

Sheppard bit his lip, watching the swirling sand blowing in through the open doorway. “I’m pretty sure the Stargate’s out there,” he said. “I can feel it.”

Now that the door was open, Evan could feel it too. It was like a tickle over his skin, tugging him ever so slightly towards it. Usually, he had to be right up next to the gate to sense it like this. Maybe that meant it was close? 

“Think the storm will let up?” he wondered.

Sheppard shook his head. “Don’t think we should wait around and see,” he answered. “I dreamt about this place. I think it only gets worse.”

Great, that was comforting. Evan understood his concern, though. They could find a spot to wait it out, but they didn’t have water and were both already near collapsing. Stalling would only increase the risk that they wouldn’t make it out of here at all, especially if the storm continued. And if their prison guards were still around somewhere, it would be better to leave now.

Evan was usually an optimist, and known for his unnerving calm in the face of all kinds of situations, but right now he knew his chances of making it back to Atlantis were slim. It probably would have scared him more had he not had the fog of drugs and exhaustion to contend with, but even so he couldn’t stop his hands from trembling a little bit at the prospect of walking out into that storm. 

Sheppard’s expression was hard to read, but there was real fear on his face, too. He knew the score, knew how difficult it would be to navigate the swirling sand and manage to find the way home. It was a long shot, but one Evan knew he would take, just like when he’d pulled the trigger in the dream. Because it was the only way home.

“Hey,” Sheppard said, putting a hand on Evan’s shoulder. “We’ve made it this far, right? What’s one more hurdle?”

Evan set his mouth in a line and nodded. If anyone could get him home, it was Sheppard.

They tied bandannas over their mouths and noses and put on sunglasses to try and protect themselves from the sand. They didn’t have any rope to tie themselves together, so they decided to hold on to each other so they didn’t lose each other in the vortex. 

“You ready?” Sheppard asked.

Was he? No. “Ready, sir,” he replied anyway. “And I just wanted to say...” He didn’t actually know what he wanted to say. They probably wouldn’t be able to talk once they got out there, which meant these could very likely be his last words, but he couldn’t think of anything to encompass what he was feeling.

“Yeah, same,” Sheppard said knowingly. 

As bad as he’d been expecting it to be, the sandstorm was worse once they made it out of the door. The wind kept changing directions and was blowing hard enough that it knocked them off their feet a few times. They ended up walking arm in arm for more stability, but even then it was a hard fight against the hurricane.

Visibility was near zero, either because the sand was too thick or because there was nothing out there to see but more sand. They couldn’t even see the ground beneath their feet. The sun must have been out somewhere up there because it wasn’t completely dark, but there wasn’t really enough light to call it daytime either. It didn’t matter, because despite the attempt to block out the sand, it blew in behind Evan’s sunglasses, stinging his eyes so much that he closed them. They weren’t helping him get anywhere anyway.

Thankfully, they didn’t walk off the edge of a cliff. There wouldn’t be any way to tell if it was coming, though Evan took care with each step forward. The ground was uneven, but fairly flat, though it was littered with boulders and smaller rocks to trip them up often enough. He imagined beneath all the blowing sand it was probably similar to parts of Death Valley, actually. 

The _only_ thing guiding them was the sensation of the Stargate, somewhere out there. Evan quickly lost all sense of how far they had gone and how long they’d been in the storm, but he knew they were making slow, slow progress. It could have been a couple hours and he bet they had probably only gone a few yards. He had been ready to collapse before they’d started this trek, and it became nearly impossible to convince himself to take each step, to not give in to the ache in his legs and let them fold beneath him.

Sheppard was still moving, though, so he would keep moving. He told himself not to quit over and over; one more step, just one more step. He pictured his family, his mom and his sister, her husband and the boys. Would they be okay without him?

As they trudged onward, he swore he could hear something on the wind. Maybe Sheppard was trying to say something? He cracked open his eyes to see, but the colonel had his head down against the wind and seemed completely focused on putting one foot in front of the other. At least it looked that way from what he could see through the thick cloud. And the noise sounded more like a child crying anyway, not like someone talking. He must be imagining things.

After that, he zoned out for a while, continuing his inner battle to press on. They must have been out here for hours by now, but they kept moving forward toward the Stargate. It called to them like a siren, growing louder with each step. Soon, he couldn’t feel his legs anymore, felt more like he was floating than walking. But they were almost there. So close.

Someone yanked him sideways and then caught him as he nearly toppled to the ground. He squinted his eyes open again to see Sheppard pointing at something and followed his gesture to the object in front of them. He could barely make out the outline of the DHD, but the familiar shape snapped him to wakefulness. That meant the gate had to be here, too. They’d made it!

Oh, thank God. Evan started to sink to the ground, his body completely done, but Sheppard caught him again and shook him roughly. Evan couldn’t tell if he actually spoke, but he could hear the voice in his head clear as day, ordering him to get back up. No, he couldn’t sit down yet. Get through the gate first.

Sheppard turned to the DHD and leaned over it, trying to see the symbols. Evan propped himself carefully against the side of it, trying to make out the shape of the Stargate through the storm. He thought he saw a shadow ahead, but it could be his eyes playing tricks on him.

Why wasn’t Sheppard dialing the gate? Instead, he grabbed Evan’s arm, pulling him over to the front of the DHD and pointing at it, shaking his head. Oh shit, he didn’t remember the address. He wanted Evan to dial.

It made sense. Each team had certain unspoken roles, and on Sheppard’s team, McKay was the one who dialed the gate. It wasn’t that Sheppard didn’t know the addresses, he just didn’t put them in as often, and with how muddled his brain must be right now, he probably didn’t trust himself to dial correctly. And they only had one shot at this.

Evan _was_ the official gate dialer on his team, a habit he’d picked up back on SG-11 after one of his teammates had dialed wrong and sent them all directly into a swamp with leeches the size of rats. From then on, he had taken it upon himself to always make sure the symbols were entered properly, and besides that, there was something satisfying about pushing the buttons. So theoretically, he should be able to remember the address more easily.

They couldn’t dial directly to Atlantis for a couple of reasons. First of all, because their codes would have been locked out as soon as they were captured, and even if they could radio in, which they couldn’t over the storm, they had no idea where they were to tell Atlantis to come get them. So that was moot. Secondly, if whoever had captured them was still monitoring them somehow, they didn’t want to give them the address to Atlantis by dialing it now.

It would have to be the Alpha Site then. Even that was risky. Ideally, they would gate to another innocuous planet beforehand to lose any tail they may have, but there was no way they were going to make it through multiple gates in their condition. They would have to hope no one was following them.

The problem was, the Alpha Site had been moved recently, and he wasn’t sure he _could_ remember the address. If he could see the DHD better, he would probably be able to do it, but he could barely make out the symbols... He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to picture the DHD in the puddle jumper. He had just taken one out to the Alpha Site a few weeks ago to move some supplies...

He ran his hands over the DHD, feeling the ridges of the symbols under his fingers. As he traced each one, he could almost _sense_ them, whispering at him. Telling him their names. Strange, but he didn’t have the time or energy to wonder too much about it. He tried to conjure up the address in his mind and a sudden word popped into his head. A word he didn’t recognize. Definitely not English.

He realized with a jolt that the word was a combination of the names of some of the symbols. The address for the Alpha Site. Without opening his eyes, his hands knew where they were. Seven syllables, seven symbols. It was like the DHD wanted to be dialed, so it helped him find the right buttons. The Stargate wanted to take them home.

He felt the kawoosh as he hit the button in the center of the DHD, a spark of joy in the bleak landscape, and then the open gate as it beckoned him to go through. It was like a candle in the window, guiding him home through the dark night. He took a wobbling step toward where he knew it was, but the wind kicked up and tried to push him back. Sheppard, only a step away, threw an arm around him and the two of them pressed against the wind together, shuffling toward their escape with a renewed burst of energy.

The buzzing electricity of the gate tugged at them more strongly with each step, but the hurricane blew harder the closer they got to it. Evan felt like he was being ripped apart, pulled in two separate directions, and he once again heard the wailing child on the wind. A moment of panic as the picture of Hope flitted through his mind. Was she here?

He squinted his eyes open again and could see the blue horizon now, shimmering through the vortex. One more step and they would be through. Sheppard made to move forward, but Evan hesitated. What if Hope hadn’t just been a dream? What if he was leaving her behind in this hell? 

Before he could decide whether to take the last step, Sheppard dragged him into the puddle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of part 2! On to part 3, which is the shortest part of this story. Thanks to anyone who has made it this far. I never thought this story would be so long, but it just kept going and going... Hope you are still enjoying it, and I love to hear from you!


	12. Chapter 12

Part 3

_“God created Arrakis to train the faithful.”_

_-Frank Herbert, Dune_

“Any interesting news from Atlantis?”

Captain Dan “Ski” Szelistowski looked up from the report he was writing to see Sergeant Matok entering the tent. She pulled off her sunglasses, no longer needing them in the shade of the tent, and unclipped her P-90 to set on the weapons rack.

Lieutenant Tucker, the one who had asked the question, was fiddling with his pen again, taking it apart and putting it back together. A sure sign he wasn’t filling out the forms he was supposed to be working on. 

Matok shook her head and sat at the table in the middle of the tent, taking a long drag from her water bottle. “Not really, sir. Colonel Caldwell pulled all the scientists off AR teams until they complete some new off world readiness training he invented. Doctor Weir is pissed, but that’s about it.”

Ski sighed, glad for once to be out of the city for his two week rotation at the Alpha Site. He usually didn’t enjoy the detail, but since Caldwell had shown up, there had been a lot of tension in Atlantis. Everyone was used to Sheppard’s command style, which was a lot more relaxed than Caldwell.

The Daedalus had shown up eighteen days ago, and already, Caldwell had enacted a couple dozen new procedures and policies. No one was taking it very well, military and civilians alike. Atlantis was like a family, mourning the loss of two of their own, and Caldwell essentially replacing Sheppard (they said it was temporary, but the longer Sheppard was missing, the more likely it was to become permanent) was certainly not helping anyone. The same would have been true for anyone taking the position, honestly, but Caldwell wasn’t a great people person, which made his command come off as harsh and uncaring. Not to mention, he had a particular idea for how Atlantis _should_ be run, which was very different from how it _had_ been run for the past three years.

The first battle he had started was rearranging the off world schedule to eliminate missions whose sole purpose was to search for the missing men. He had insisted that the best thing for Atlantis was to return to normal operations, which had been an unpopular decision. But by that point, they had been searching for three weeks with zero leads, and even Doctor Weir couldn’t argue to continue to expend time and resources unless they came up with more evidence to follow. 

The search hadn’t completely stopped, everyone still kept hoping that an ally would hear something or a clue would appear, but the mood had definitely shifted in the city. A month in and people were beginning to accept that they may never know what happened to Sheppard and Lorne. Some were handling it better than others; Sheppard’s team had been a mess, especially McKay, who clashed with Caldwell on every level. Ronon hadn’t been any better, but didn’t have to deal with the colonel as much, and Teyla had been stuck playing the diplomat, running interference between the hot-headed males on her team and Weir and the new military commander. Eventually, they had come to an agreement that AR-1 could continue to visit the planets on McKay’s list as long as it corresponded with the regular schedule of keeping up with trade partners and allies (the rumor was that McKay had threatened to leave otherwise). Their usual scientific reconnaissance mission duties had been assigned to other teams for the time being.

Surprisingly, Caldwell had allowed Lorne’s team to stay together under Lieutenant Kennel’s command instead of reassigning them, making Ski think that Caldwell wasn’t actually as heartless as he came off. He had even left them the main point of contact with the Elarians and allowed them to continue biweekly visits, though that wasn’t strictly necessary to maintain their trade relations. From the sounds of it, they might actually be one of the few teams still intact after the latest new policy, at least until the scientists completed whatever training course Caldwell had set up.

“He really knows how to make a good impression with the civilians, I see,” Tucker said, standing to stretch. “Though I doubt Weir will let it stand. She’ll get the IOA on his ass.”

“Yeah, but he’s got Landry’s ear,” Ski pointed out. “I heard he wanted Caldwell in Atlantis all along, but General O’Neill overruled him.” 

“Well, if he gets his way, I bet a lot of people will leave,” Tucker said. “I’ve already heard some of the guys say they’ll request to transfer back to Earth if Caldwell stays.”

Ski had heard some of the talk too, though he wasn’t sure how serious it was. Everyone was understandably upset at the situation, but he knew it would die down once they adjusted. It had only been six weeks total, and not even three since Caldwell’s arrival, which meant emotions were still high all around. The colonel wasn’t a bad commander, just different. There would inevitably be a few people to transfer out, both from the military and civilian side of things, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be as dramatic as they all thought it would.

“Who’s on patrol?” Ski asked, deciding he needed to stretch his legs. 

“Sanchez and Lewis,” Matok responded.

Ski closed his laptop. He could work on reports later. Right now, he wanted to get out of here before the conversation inevitably turned to bashing Caldwell. He understood the need for the soldiers to vent their frustrations, but he didn’t need to be around to hear it. ”I’m going to go check in with them,” he announced, grabbing his gear and heading out.

M3X-Y95 reminded Ski of the Midwest; deciduous forests, tall grass fields, rivers and lakes. The climate was similar, with four seasons and lots of days where it felt like all four seasons were packed into one. Right now, it was summer, and so it was hot, but a nice breeze from the east was keeping things fairly pleasant. 

He found Sergeants Sanchez and Lewis near the Stargate, gossiping about something. They greeted him as he approached, standing at attention. He returned the salutes.

“Everything quiet out here?” Ski asked.

Sanchez nodded. “Yes, sir. Check in with Atlantis was thirty minutes ago.”

“Matok gave us the update,” Ski said before she continued. “Unless there was more news than Colonel Caldwell’s new policy on civilians joining off world teams.”

“No, sir,” Sanchez confirmed, visibly suppressing a wince. That was probably what the two had been discussing when Ski walked up. They knew he didn’t like them bad-mouthing their commander, whether or not he personally liked the man.

“Alright,” he started, about to tell them he would see them in a couple of hours, maybe go walk the perimeter and get some time to himself, but he was interrupted by the Stargate coming to life.

The three soldiers immediately took up defensive positions as the gate kawooshed into life. The only people who ever dialed in were Atlantis, and they had just finished talking to them.

The blue puddle shimmered for a moment, and then a cloud of dust and sand blew through, followed by two very dirty and bedraggled figures. Their faces were covered, and they were leaning against one another in such a way that Ski couldn’t tell who was supporting who. They stumbled to a stop as the gate shut down behind them, breathing heavily like they’d been running. Ski tightened his grip on his P-90, recognizing the Atlantis-issued gear they were carrying under the thick layer of grime. Who...?

The taller figure lifted a hand to take off his sunglasses and push down the bandanna that had been covering the rest of his face, making Ski’s heart stop in shock. He heard gasps from the others next to him.

“Colonel Sheppard?” Ski stuttered, finding his voice. The man was barely recognizable, his face gaunt and filthy under a thick beard.

Sheppard grinned, and Ski could swear there were tears in his eyes as he croaked, “Hey, Captain. Miss us?” before promptly collapsing.

*****

Carson thought longingly of the cup of tea sitting untouched on his desk back in his office, wondering if the lack of caffeine was the culprit of the headache forming behind his eyes. He would have to find time to sneak away for a few minutes, go grab a fresh cup, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t help very much.

The call from the Alpha Site had come in four hours ago, and since then he hadn’t had time to take a breath, let alone drink any tea. This was the first time he had stopped long enough to even think about the fact that he was thirsty. And a bit hungry. He had worked straight through lunch, and likely wouldn’t stop for dinner either. He would have to make sure his nurses took breaks and got something to eat; they tended to be just as oblivious as he was to their own needs when they were caught up in work.

Speaking of people who would forget to eat, Carson glanced up at the observation window above the isolation room and spotted the anxious faces watching him. He had forgotten about them while he was focused on his patients, but now was a good time to update them. He turned to Zaina and Dakarai, the two nurses currently on shift, to let them know what he was doing.

“I’m going to pop out for a minute. Call me if there’s any change.”

Glancing over the unconscious forms of Colonel Sheppard and Major Lorne one more time, he headed up to the observation room.

The tiny room was packed with people, unsurprisingly. Carson expected even if he ordered them all away they wouldn’t go. Six _weeks_ with no hint of where the two men had gone, and they suddenly show up at the Alpha Site looking like they’d come straight out of the movie _Cast Away_. 

“Carson, how are they?” Elizabeth asked as soon as he walked into the room. Rodney, Teyla, Ronon, Kennel, and Caldwell all leaned in, giving him their full attention for his report.

Carson sighed. “Alive,” he said with a shrug. “Stable for now.”

“Will they be alright?” Teyla asked with concern.

Running a hand over his face, Carson sighed again. “They’re both severely dehydrated and malnourished, and there’s a compound in their blood that I’ve never seen before. Whatever it is, it seems to be interfering with their brain chemistry. The compound seems to be breaking down, but I’m not sure of how exactly it’s affecting them in the meantime.” An evasive answer, but the best he could give right now.

Caldwell crossed his arms over his chest with a frown. “They were drugged?”

“Aye, seems that way. There are puncture wounds on their arms and neck that indicate they were injected with something. I need to run some more tests to determine what exactly.”

“What the hell happened to them?” McKay blurted, unable to keep quiet any longer. Ah, this was the million dollar question, the one they all wanted the answer to. Everyone awaited his response with wide eyes.

Carson shook his head slowly. “I can’t tell you much, I’m afraid. Neither of them has been conscious yet. But I don’t think they did this to themselves.”

“You think they were held as prisoners?” McKay pressed.

“From what it looks like, they were starved, restrained, and drugged,” he said, not bothering to hide his disgust. He had been shocked and appalled by their state when he’d gone to fetch them from the Alpha Site. They hadn’t just been lost somewhere for all that time, marooned in a time rift or stuck in another dimension as Rodney had theorized might have been the case. Someone had done that to them, which meant they had been held captive, at least for some of the time they had been missing. Thankfully, there had been no other evidence of injury or torture, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t endured other horrors that left no physical evidence. “We really can’t be sure what they went through. We’ll have to wait until they wake for them to tell us what happened.”

“And when will that be?” Elizabeth interjected, her wide eyes hopeful.

Again, Carson had no answer. “I’m not entirely sure. Hopefully within the next few hours to a day, but there’s no telling. Like I said, the drugs are not something I’ve seen before. On top of that, it looks like they went through quite an ordeal to get back.” They had been caked in sand and had windburn on their faces and hands, which made Carson think that wherever they had been had not been a pleasant environment. “And six weeks is a long time...” he added, not needing to voice that the mental trauma from their experience could be more severe. From the looks on everyone’s faces, they had already been thinking it.

“Do you have any reason to believe they’ve been compromised?” Caldwell asked. “You said the drugs in their systems are affecting their brain chemistry?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Carson admitted sadly. He certainly hoped not, but it was a real possibility. “We’re running more tests, but it’s going to take some time. We’ve not seen anything quite like this before. We may just have to wait and see.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment, eyes wandering back to the unconscious patients in the beds below. They had waited six weeks, they would have to be patient and wait a few more hours before they had the answers they all wanted so badly.

“God,” Rodney breathed after a few minutes. “They look awful.”

“But they’re home,” Elizabeth reminded him. 

“Aye,” Carson agreed. “And they’ll be well soon enough.” At least, he hoped so.


	13. Chapter 13

_He was back in the storm, coughing and choking on the sand he had inhaled with his last scream. He threw his hands up over his face to block out the stinging particles while he caught his breath. Already, he could hear the distant screams swirling on the wind._

_He crouched into a ball, burying his face in his knees and putting his hands over his ears, waiting for the darkness he knew was inevitably coming. He had given up. He couldn’t fight this, it was just a dream anyway. He would wake up eventually, and until then he just had to ride it out._

_But something was different this time. He could feel something, under his skin. A faint buzzing, a hum, a tingling that he hadn’t felt for so long. Atlantis?_

_Focusing, he pushed aside the noise of the wind and the screams, the feeling of the sand hitting him. He let the hum grow louder and louder in his mind until it was all he knew, filling him completely._

_The world around him went still._

_Opening his eyes, he realized that he was standing in... Nothing. There was no ground, no sky. Just complete blackness._

_And utter silence._

_No, not total silence. There was something, very faint. Something he had heard before. A gentle voice..._

_“Hello?” he called out to the blankness around him, and was surprised at how loud he sounded in his ears. “Is anyone out there?”_

_Out of the nothing came a whisper, so faint he could barely hear it._

_“John,” it said. A woman’s voice, soft and sweet. “Can you hear me?”_

_“Who are you?” he asked the darkness spinning in a circle to try and identify where the voice was coming from. Blank space in every direction._

_“Please,” she whispered earnestly, “Help us. Save us from them.”_

_He didn’t recognize the voice, yet it sounded so familiar. “From who? Where are you?”_

_Something invisible touched his cheek, caressed him. He started at the touch, but didn’t pull away from it. It was so gentle, so full of love. He closed his eyes and leaned into it, his heart fluttering. It had been so long since he had felt this, and with a jolt realized it reminded him of the way Nancy used to touch him, back when they’d first fallen in love. Before things had gone so, so wrong. It was that feeling of raw joy and passion and not caring about anything else in the world but that simple touch._

_“Who are you?” he choked, tears falling down his cheeks._

_“Please, John,” the voice begged, and he could hear the desperation behind it. “You must find Hope.”_

The buzzing returned in full force, and light assaulted John’s eyes behind closed lids. He squeezed them further shut with a groan and tried to raise an arm to block out the offending brightness, but his limbs felt like lead. Over the noise in his head, he heard a voice, and then another deeper voice. Were they talking to him?

Forcing his eyes open, he made out blurry shapes of people above him. He blinked a couple of times, trying to focus, and eventually recognized one of the figures as Beckett. As soon as he identified his face, he could hear his familiar brogue. He pushed the buzzing noise aside and focused on the words.

“Colonel, are you with me, son? Can you hear me?”

“Carson?” he said. Or, at least, tried to say. His voice was once again not working.

Someone fed him something cold, ice chips, he realized, and the moisture was like heaven. When was the last time he had had something to drink? He couldn’t even remember. The cold dissolved some of the fog from his brain, woke him up a bit more. He was lying on something soft, and could feel the weight of a blanket on his legs.

“How are you feeling, lad?” Beckett’s face was lined with concern.

Wait a second; Beckett! That meant... John’s eyes widened as he searched around the room, taking it in. Yes, the isolation room in Atlantis. They had made it! He sagged against his pillow, closing his eyes in relief. Thank God.

“John?”

Right, he should probably acknowledge the doctor before he started freaking out. John smiled, opening his eyes to meet the doctor’s worried gaze. “Hey, Carson,” he tried again, and this time noise actually came out, albeit very weak and raspy. But intelligible nonetheless. “Really good to see you.”

Beckett beamed at him, patting him on the shoulder. “Aye, it’s good to see you, too, son,” he said. 

John’s brain still felt sluggish, but questions were starting to form. First and foremost, “Lorne?”

Beckett pointed across the room. “He’s right over there, lad.” John spotted the major, sleeping soundly and looking slightly better than the last time he’d seen him. At least cleaner.

“He okay?” From what he remembered, Lorne hadn’t been doing so hot when they got to the Stargate. Of course, neither had he.

“About as well as you,” Beckett assured him. “Which is to say not great, but on the mend. He’s still sleeping off the drugs you both were given.”

John nodded slowly at this. His thoughts drifted back to waking up in that room on the stone table with all the tubes attached to him. That would explain why he felt so out of it. 

“John, can you tell me what happened to you?” Beckett asked, breaking him out of the disturbing memory. 

John focused back on him, seeing the concerned curiosity in his eyes. He sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t really know, Doc. My memory’s kind of... jumbled up. We were in some kind of dream reality or something. We eventually figured it out and woke up, and then we managed to find the Stargate and get to the Alpha Site.” 

Beckett frowned. “Dream reality?”

“Yeah,” John said with a wince, not sure how to explain it. “It was like... we were different people. It was so real, Carson. I remember my whole life there. And there were these Shadows... But we figured out it wasn’t real. Well, Lorne figured it out. Something about art. And then I shot myself because if you die in a dream you wake up, right? And it worked because I did wake up...” He trailed off, realizing he was rambling and probably not making a lot of sense.

Beckett had a strange look on his face, probably trying to decide if he should ask more questions about that. But he decided to go a different direction and instead asked, “Do you know who took you? And how did you get away?”

“No idea who took us. We never saw anyone else,” John said, shrugging. “The place they were keeping us was abandoned. Looked like it was a prison or something a long, long time ago. The planet was a giant sandstorm, so I guess they didn’t expect we would make it out, but we did.”

“You don’t remember anything else? Anything before the dream?”

“Nothing,” John repeated. “I think we were hooked up to all that stuff for a while, though.”

Beckett considered this for a minute with a frown. “You were gone for six weeks, lad. If your story is true, if you’d been unconscious that long... You wouldn’t have been able to walk out of there.”

Six weeks? He felt the air rush out of his lungs. Over a month. He knew it had been a while, but... A lot could happen in six weeks. And he didn’t remember any of it. 

“There’s still a decent amount of drugs in your system, so hopefully the memory loss will pass,” Beckett continued, noting John’s reaction to the news. “What’s the last thing you remember before you were taken?”

John was still stuck on the six weeks thing. How could it have possibly been that long? And yet, in a way it had felt like an entire lifetime in the dream. He furrowed his brow, once again trying to separate out the memories to answer the doctor’s questions. “Uh, I don’t know. It’s hard to remember what happened when,” he admitted.

“Do you remember being on Elar?” Beckett prompted.

Elar. Yes. The dedication ceremony thing. He nodded. “Yeah, we went for that ceremony. The girls kept following Lorne’s Marines around.”

Beckett chuckled at that. “Sounds about right. On your way back, the puddle jumper was affected by something that made it lose power and everyone lost consciousness. You and Major Lorne disappeared without a trace.”

“What? Was anybody else hurt?” he asked.

“No,” Beckett assured him. “No one was hurt. Unless you count the jumper, which never did function again.”

“Where _is_ everybody?” he suddenly wondered. He would have expected someone to be around after he’d been MIA for six weeks. Oh, shit; he’d been MIA for six weeks. Who had been running things around here while he and Lorne were gone? 

“I sent them to get something to eat, and hopefully a wee bit of sleep as well,” Beckett told him with a small smile, interrupting the long line of questions forming in his mind. “You’ve been here almost a day. It’s about four in the morning right now.”

Oh. John supposed the lights were kind of dimmer than usual. He had been hoping to see his team, though.

“They’ll be back in a couple of hours, I’m sure,” Beckett said, and John realized the disappointment must have shown on his face. 

He nodded, suddenly feeling very tired again and not sure where to start with the billions of other questions he had.

“Why don’t you get some sleep, lad?” Beckett suggested, seeing his drooping eyes. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, as do I, but they’ll keep until tomorrow.”

Ah, Carson Beckett, ever the wise one. John smiled and slumped down a little further into the bed. “Good idea, Doc,” he agreed with a yawn, his eyes already closing.

“It’s good to have you back, John.”

“Good to be back,” he mumbled incoherently as he drifted off.

*****

Evan had never felt so weak in his entire life. 

They had been back for four days now, and had finally been declared threat free and safe to move to the infirmary. He’d been surprised how relieved he had been to see the familiar infirmary walls. Usually, he counted down the seconds until he could get out of this place, but given a choice between it and the isolation room, the infirmary won hands down.

Not that he had been awake all that much during his and Sheppard’s stint in the iso room. He had snippets of memories of waking up, realizing they had made it back to Atlantis, and lots of questions about what had happened that didn’t seem to have any answers. He remembered Beckett saying something about being gone for six weeks, and starvation and muscle degradation. None of that had really sunk in until the first time they made him get up and walk across the room. That had been a harsh awakening.

As far as anyone could tell, he and Sheppard had been in the dream state for over a month. Beckett wasn’t convinced that they had been in the dream the entire time, that they were in too good of shape, which Evan disagreed with because he didn’t feel anything about the shape he was in could be described as “good.” But neither he nor Sheppard could remember anything other than the dream and then waking up and making their way back to the Stargate, and while being in the sandstorm had felt like an eternity, they were pretty sure it hadn’t been _that_ long.

Regardless of what had actually happened, the recovery was going to be a long and hard process. First and foremost, the reintroduction of food after not eating anything for over a month. So far, Beckett’s rigorously planned feeding schedule hadn’t gone so well. Evan had yet to feel hungry, and when he did force himself to consume the protein shake stuff they were making him drink, it came right back up more than half the time. Beckett was threatening a feeding tube if he wasn’t able to keep something down soon.

Sheppard had done slightly better, but he was not enjoying the meals of what was basically Ensure either. He was already begging for a burger and fries, or maybe some ice cream, complaining that he should get some sympathy after not getting to eat anything in a month. But Beckett rattled off something about refeeding syndrome and ended that argument pretty quickly. 

Being a victim of starvation sucked.

And then there was the muscle degradation, which left Evan feeling like he had the strength of a newborn baby. He could barely hold a cup of water without his hands shaking from the weight of it. Beckett was already getting them up a few times a day to walk around the infirmary, and even the short strolls were exhausting. Evan wondered how they had ever managed to wander around that compound for so long, to press through the sandstorm and find the Stargate. 

He had been ecstatic when he’d finally been allowed to take a shower and shave. It was perhaps the closest feeling to heaven he’d ever experienced. He was pretty sure everyone else had been happy about it, too; the stench had been bad. Now that he was clean and able to stay awake for more than five minutes at a time, he was actually starting to feel more human again.

“Oh good,” Beckett said cheerily, walking into the main room from his office, “you’re both up.”

Evan glanced up from the letter he was writing to his mom. He had basically only written “Dear Mom,” and then made some doodles in the corners. It was hard to come up with a good way to explain what happened without actually saying anything about what happened, but he needed to write something other than just “sorry for worrying you.” He had already sent a very brief email to his family to inform them he was alive and well, but he knew they would appreciate a hand-written letter. And there was nothing else to do anyway, since Sheppard was hogging the Nintendo DS. He would have to ask Kennel to borrow a book later when Beckett let visitors back into the infirmary.

“Hey, Doc,” Sheppard greeted, putting down the Nintendo. “What’s going on?”

“Thought I would share some wee test results,” Beckett explained, stopping somewhere halfway between them. They weren’t right next to each other, but their beds were close enough that they could chat if they wanted. Evan thought the hope was that they would entertain each other enough to not drive the staff crazy, and that that was probably hoping for a bit much.

He sat up a little straighter to listen to the results, wondering if it would give any indication into what had happened. The whole thing was still a big disturbing mystery.

Beckett flipped open the folder he was holding and looked over it. “We did an analysis on the drugs found in your systems. There were a couple of different compounds. It seems like one was some kind of sedative, which isn’t surprising, but the other is a bit more odd. It took us a couple of days to work out exactly how it was affecting you.” He paused. “Do you remember when Rodney found that Ancient device that caused him to almost ascend?”

Sheppard frowned. “Yeah,” he drawled, waiting to see where Beckett was going with this.

“Well, it seems whatever this other drug was, it had a similar effect, except you were only given a low dose so it happened at much slower rate.”

“Wait,” Sheppard said, scrunching his face. “You’re saying someone gave us an ascension drug?” 

Evan waited expectantly for the doctor’s answer.

“Aye,” he said. “At least that’s what it looks like to me, and it matches the symptoms we’ve seen. Whatever this compound is, it seems to have interacted with the ATA gene somehow and began to alter your DNA.”

Evan wondered if he had the same look of shock on his face that Sheppard had. “It messed with our DNA?” he asked, freaked out by that idea. He didn’t feel any different. Well, other than the obvious stuff from being in a coma.

“Didn’t Rodney almost die from that?” Sheppard added, shifting uncomfortably.

Beckett quickly quelled their worries with a smile. “It doesn’t seem to be permanent. It’s dissipating on its own and your bodies are returning to normal, but it metabolizes slowly. It may still be a week before it’s completely out of your systems, but you should be fine.”

Well, that was a relief. Evan had no desire to turn into energy and go floating away anytime soon.

“Hang on, Doc,” Sheppard said slowly. “If we were ascending, then why didn’t we get any cool powers like Rodney had?” Now that he knew he wasn’t dying, he actually seemed pissed off that he hadn’t acquired telekinesis. Typical Sheppard.

The doctor sighed, “Well, I can’t be certain, but the sedative you were given may have suppressed some of the effects of the process that Rodney experienced. But you may have had some abilities, which could explain why you both weren’t worse off after being in a drug-induced coma for six weeks.”

Huh, that sort of made sense. Rodney had been able to heal people, maybe they’d healed themselves. And there was the whole thing with the DHD talking to him... 

Beckett continued his spiel. “It also seems that the drug bonded better to your ATA gene, John, probably since you have a stronger expression. Which is why you’ve been having more side effects, Evan. Once it works its way out of your system, you should feel better.”

Oh joy, the ascension drug didn’t agree with his stomach. Beckett had said it would be another week of this? “That’s fun,” he grumbled, unable to stop the snarky comment before it was out of his mouth. 

“Wonder if that’s why you figured out that it was a dream,” Sheppard theorized, offering a sympathetic shrug. “Didn’t work as well on you.”

Evan frowned again. Is that why he’d had flashes of waking up and Sheppard hadn’t? “Maybe,” he said. They would probably never know.

“So the question remains,” Sheppard said, moving on, “who did this? And what was the point of making us dream about running around in the desert?”

“That I can’t tell you, lad,” Beckett answered, shaking his head slowly. 

They’d already theorized about the building they had woken up in, but had no idea what planet they’d even been on and hadn’t recognized any of the architecture or technology. Some of the scientists were looking at the Ancient database for references to any prisons, but the research could take a while. Based on how the investigation to find them had gone, no one was very hopeful about finding much. 

The part they hadn’t theorized on very much yet was the actual dream. It was still weird to think about, and Evan had been avoiding dwelling too much on it. But maybe there were some clues there. He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to lessen the ache behind his eyes that had never really gone away since he woke up, and decided to see if he could make any sense of it. “In the dream, we were looking for the girl.”

“ _You_ were looking for the girl,” Sheppard corrected smartly. “ _I_ was recruited against my will.”

Evan threw a glare at him to which Sheppard smirked unrepentantly. “Fine, sir, _you_ were just hunting aliens like an obsessed lunatic.” Sheppard feigned offense, but didn’t argue. “But the Shadows kept asking where _it_ was. Do you think whoever had us was looking for something?”

Beckett was watching the conversation intently without interrupting. So far, they hadn’t spoken much about the dream reality, other than acknowledging that it existed and that they interacted inside of it. Evan knew everyone was curious about it, but they were being careful about the questions they asked. He suspected they were all worried that the experience had been traumatic from the few things they _had_ said, and was sure both he and Sheppard were going to have some long chats with Heightmeyer about it soon.

“They told me you knew where it was,” Sheppard pointed out. “That’s why they were trying to off me at the end.”

Evan frowned, dropping his hand. He hadn’t known that. “They said I knew?” he asked, not sure what to do with that. 

Sheppard shrugged. “That’s what they said. That you knew where it was and they didn’t need me anymore.”

What could he possibly know that Sheppard didn’t? He shook his head, trying to think of anything that would be worth all the trouble they had gone through to find the information, but came up blank. All this thinking was just making him tired again. “God, this is like being in the damn dream again,” he moaned, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t even joke about being back in there,” Sheppard told him with a look of horror, but Evan thought he was kidding. Mostly. “I can only find so many ways to kill myself.”

“I can assure you, lad, this is not a dream,” Beckett said, his look of concern not a joke. Yep, he was definitely worried about their mental state.

Evan decided that maybe they should quell some of the doctor’s apprehension before he put Sheppard on a suicide watch. “Hey, it wasn’t all bad,” he said. “I kind of enjoyed being a park ranger. Got to hike a lot.”

Sheppard rolled his eyes. “You want to hike more? I’ll remember that the next time you complain about your mission assignments.”

The distraction from the darker parts of the dream world seemed to have worked, Beckett looked less worried now. He glanced at his watch. “I should go take another look at these results to be sure I’m not missing anything, and it’s almost time for your next meal anyway.” 

Evan slumped back against his pillow with a disappointed groan, which Beckett ignored. “I’ll have Zaina bring it around. Maybe if there’s no complaints, I’ll even let you have ice lollies for dessert.”

“Does that mean Popsicles?” Sheppard asked, his eyes lighting up. “Because, if it does, I want grape.”

Beckett chuckled as he walked away, promising to see what he could do. Evan went back to his letter, trying not to think about food. His stomach was already churning.

After a minute, he felt Sheppard’s gaze on him and looked up at him questioningly. “What’s up, sir?” he asked, wondering if he had a question or if he was just bored and wanted to talk.

Sheppard seemed to be pondering something, but was taking his time putting the thought into words. Eventually, he narrowed his eyes and said, “Lorne, you don’t really think we’re still in the Matrix, right?”

He couldn’t say that the thought hadn’t been nagging at him since they woke up here. Was there any way for them to tell for sure that this was real? Save shooting themselves in the head, which Evan was in no hurry to do. 

But while things in the dream world had felt real, there had also been something _wrong_ about them, like looking at one of his paintings and noticing the strokes were slightly off. This didn’t have that same feeling to it. 

“I sure hope not,” he said. 

“Yeah. Me, too.”


	14. Chapter 14

“So what’s the story with Ronon and Lorne’s Marines?”

Teyla smiled as she walked arm-in-arm with John, subtly acting as his balance and crutch if he needed it. “They became close during the search,” she said. “Especially Sergeants Jones and St. Clair. I believe they look up to Ronon, and he has taken them under his wing. It is,” she paused and tilted her head to glance at him, “quite cute.”

John had noticed the three of them hanging out a lot lately, and the way that the two younger Marines watched Ronon with what could only be described as puppy-dog eyes. “Pretty adorable,” he agreed, chuckling. 

“It has been good for them,” she continued. “Things were... difficult while you were gone. Working together on the search gave them purpose.”

They reached the balcony and Teyla led him to one of the chairs, sensing that he needed to sit, though he would never admit it. He was grateful that Beckett had finally let him out on field trips to walk around the city, even if he did require a babysitter, but it was annoying that he still couldn’t make it very far without needing to rest. Even so, he would much prefer to sit out here and enjoy the view of the blue sky and glittering ocean than hang out in the infirmary.

Now that he had been back for a little over a week, he had started to hear some details about what had been going on during his and Lorne’s absence, though he sensed there was probably a lot more they weren’t telling him. Caldwell, who was sticking around for a couple more weeks until he was back on his feet, had given him a brief report on the happenings on the military side of things. Elizabeth had described a more elaborate account of her side of operations in the last six weeks. From the sounds of it, the biggest news was that Caldwell had made some unpopular changes to policies and procedures, which was irritating, but better than a lot of other stuff that could have happened.

The people he hadn’t heard much from yet, and the accounts he cared the most about, were the ones from his team. He could tell it had been bad based on the fact that at least one, if not all three of them, were in the infirmary with him every second of visiting hours, and beyond if they could convince Carson to let them stay. Rodney had been the most obvious about how he had handled John’s absence, constantly complaining about how much he disliked Caldwell and blatantly saying if John ever disappeared like that again he would find him just so he could kill him. Teyla had predictably been more diplomatic, not saying anything specific but reinforcing how glad they were to have him back. Ronon had smiled a lot and given him a few friendly shakes on the shoulder, but had been short on words, which was pretty par for the course.

John wasn’t sure he wanted to know too much about what everyone in Atlantis had been doing during his unintended vacation, to be honest. He was already a mixed bag of emotions over the whole thing and didn’t need to add in any feelings of responsibility over his friends thinking he’d been lost forever. What he did want was for them to stop acting weird around him, like they had to keep a constant eye on him. But Heightmeyer had told him the only way he was going to resolve the tension was to talk to them about it, and as much as he hated to admit it, he knew she was right.

“And you?” he asked, staring at his outstretched feet instead of looking at her. Why did he still feel so awkward talking about this kind of stuff with her? “How did you handle things?”

She sighed, sitting down next to him, and was quiet for a minute. “I will admit, I had a hard time as well,” she said slowly. “Doctor Weir was accommodating, but with some of the new policies, I feared I may not have a future on an off world team here, which made me consider whether I wished to stay in Atlantis. I believe Ronon felt the same way.”

It was weird, seeing what Atlantis would have been without him there. He felt a little like Jimmy Stewart in _It’s a Wonderful Life_. As much as he wanted to pretend he wasn’t essential to this place, to these people, he was realizing just how much would change if he were ever lost for good. It made him incredibly uncomfortable, thinking about how much sway he had over so many people’s lives.

“What, you guys wouldn’t stick around for McKay?” he joked, wishing he wasn’t so bad at these conversations. 

Teyla smiled at him in her ever-patient way. “I am not sure Rodney would have stayed either,” she told him. “He was planning to subvert Colonel Caldwell’s decision to have us return to regular missions and continue to search on his own.”

Wait, what? John had not heard anything about this yet. “He was going to do _what_?” he demanded, imagining Rodney angrily plotting to leave the city and go rogue. End his career for the sake of someone he might never have found.

Teyla laid a hand on his arm to calm him. “Carson and I would not have allowed him to carry out his plan. It was simply his way of dealing with his frustration.”

He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it more than its usual state of disarray. Great, so his disappearing had practically ripped apart his team. If he had been gone any longer... What if one of them had made a decision that was irreversible? This was not at all what he wanted to hear. He didn’t want to be that kind of linchpin for them.

This was the whole reason he tried to keep a certain amount of distance from everyone. To do his job, he needed to be able to know that they wouldn’t fall apart the minute something happened to him, because, quite honestly, in his line of work that was a high probability. Hearing how messy things had gotten on his account... Sure, it was nice to know they cared, but hell if he’d be the reason Atlantis fell apart.

“John,” Teyla said, bringing him back to the conversation. Her dark eyes searched his for a moment, knowing his thoughts. “You are important to many here in Atlantis, as is Major Lorne. Are you so surprised that we were upset by your disappearance?”

He let out a long sigh, and with it the self-reproach that had been building. This was the kind of stuff Heightmeyer had been telling him to stop doing to himself. He couldn’t control other people’s reactions, only his own, and getting mad over stuff that hadn’t actually happened was a waste of time. “I guess not,” he said. “It’s just... I don’t know.” He couldn’t figure out what exactly he wanted to say. This conversation wasn’t at all going how he had intended. He just wanted things to be normal again, or as normal as they ever got around here. “It just sucks,” he summarized. It sucked that Caldwell had to take over, it sucked that people had been upset, and it sucked that he had to deal with the fallout now.

“Yes, but now you are home, and soon you may even be able to walk without my help,” Teyla told him, a twinkle in her eye.

He quirked a grin at her and swatted at her arm, which she dodged easily. “Hey, I could walk on my own just fine. I just like hanging out with you.”

She gave him a chagrined look and shook her head but didn’t correct him. “Has Carson told you when you will be released yet?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Eh, not really,” he said, turning his gaze to the fluffy white clouds. “Maybe by the end of the week. He said there’s still trace amounts of the ascension drug in my system, so until that’s gone I’m stuck.”

“Have have you been feeling?” 

“Oh, way better,” he said easily. He hadn’t noticed any side effects from the drug, so at this point it was just the residual weakness, and that was slowly improving each day. “Beckett even let me have something resembling solid food this morning, so you know. Practically normal again.” 

She studied him before asking, “And the dreams? Have you still been having them?”

He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. The unfortunate thing about being in the infirmary was that when he had nightmares, there were people around to notice. Lorne was having them, too, he knew. “Not as often,” he said, which was true. 

He was spared talking any more about it by Rodney’s voice. “Ah, there you are,” he said, as he and Ronon joined them on the balcony. “Beckett said you and Teyla were out for a stroll.”

“Yep, you found us,” John told them. Ronon leaned against the railing while Rodney grabbed a nearby chair, plopping down contentedly. He was holding a steaming cup of coffee and the smell immediately made John’s mouth water. He might have missed coffee nearly as much as his team during his absence. “Hey, let me have a sip,” he said, holding out a hand for the mug.

“What?” Rodney said, aghast. He cradled the mug protectively. “No! Are you even allowed to have coffee yet?”

“Oh, come on,” John whined. “One sip won’t hurt. Beckett doesn’t have to know.” Technically, coffee was a liquid, which meant he should be allowed to have it on his liquid diet.

Rodney seemed to consider this for a moment before Teyla scolded him with a, “Rodney!” 

He shrugged. “Teyla says no,” he said helplessly before taking a loud sip.

John made a face at him and humphed. He was really sick of being sick.

“So what were you two talking about?” Rodney asked, swirling the cup absentmindedly.

“Nothing much,” John said, tearing his eyes away from the mug to give Rodney a stern look. “Teyla was telling me about your little coup.”

Rodney furrowed his brow and then recognition sparked behind his eyes. “Oh, that?” He waved a hand dismissively. “That was nothing. Caldwell came around eventually.” Well, at least he wasn’t still angry at the colonel. In fact, he seemed downright chipper today. Maybe they’d turned a corner on this whole acting weird around him thing.

John decided not to poke at it any further for now. If Rodney was past it, he wasn’t going to go digging for trouble. “What have you two been up to?” he asked conversationally.

“Ah,” Rodney said, his face lighting up, “well Zelenka and I started a new project looking at the gravitational properties of the moons of...” He continued, but John zoned out for the rest of what he said.

“Uh huh,” he eventually interrupted as Rodney’s speech continued on and on and on. “Sounds fascinating. And you, Ronon?” Rodney looked slightly hurt, but closed his mouth.

Ronon shot an amused at Rodney, almost like a brag that no one cared about the scientist’s day. “Jones and St. Clair were teaching me how to play Foosball,” he said, and John shared a small smile with Teyla. “I don’t understand why they like it so much. You aren’t actually playing a sport, just spinning knobs to hit a tiny ball.”

They had a Foosball table in one of the rec rooms, and some of the Marines had become obsessed to the point that they held weekly tournaments. “Yeah, I don’t get it either,” John admitted. He had never been much of a Foosball player himself. “But it keeps the Marines out of trouble.” And that was _always_ a good thing.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the wind tickle the ocean into choppy waves and push the clouds past. John smiled contentedly, enjoying his team’s quiet presence, once again thankful to be home.

*****

After two weeks in the infirmary, two weeks stuck mostly in his quarters, and then another two on desk duty, Evan felt more than ready to get back out there. Weir had been reluctant to send him and Sheppard off world even though they had been cleared both by Beckett and Heightmeyer, but they had convinced her to let them participate in one of the scheduled training exercises. A third of Atlantis’ military contingent would be there to make sure they didn’t get snatched again, and they reminded her they would have to go off world again eventually. Best to start with something low risk.

Evan would have taken any mission if it got him out of the city. Not that he didn’t like being in Atlantis, but he was going a little mad being stuck in one place for so long. At least the last couple of weeks he had been able to return to a somewhat normal routine, but that didn’t erase those first few when he hadn’t been able to do anything for himself. He needed to show he was capable again, needed to be able to do his job.

The counseling sessions hadn’t been so bad, at least for him. They weren’t his favorite, but he had learned not to fight it a long time ago and actually found Kate helpful. He wasn’t sure how Sheppard had fared, but overall, he thought he was handling the whole being-drugged-and-stuck-in-a-dream-reality thing pretty well. It still felt a bit unreal, like it had happened to someone else. He could remember everything from it, his entire life there, but it felt like he was remembering a movie he’d seen a million times. 

Honestly, the part that bothered him the most out of the entire experience was that he’d never found Hope. He was still having that dream about her, where the Shadows showed up and absorbed all the kids, but less and less frequently now. Heightmeyer had seemed to think it was his brain’s way of dealing with the stress and would continue to fade the further he got from the incident. She apparently hadn’t been too concerned about his mental state because she’d cleared him before Beckett had.

The physical aspect of the recovery had been more brutal in Evan’s opinion. It had taken him nine days to be able to eat anything resembling solid food, and the physical therapy sessions had been less than enjoyable. As someone who had always taken his athleticism for granted, it had been frustrating for Evan to not be able to walk across the room without getting winded. He still had a ways to go to get back to the shape he’d been in before, but for now he was satisfied that he no longer needed a nap in the middle of the day just from doing his normal routine.

It had actually been kind of nice that he hadn’t been suffering through the recovery alone. Once they had stopped feeling like death warmed over, he and Sheppard had gotten sick of the infirmary pretty quickly and began the campaign to remove themselves from it. They staved off the boredom by competing in any asinine game they could come up with (many of which involved throwing things to try and hit targets such as Beckett’s many cups of tea), and driving the nurses crazy (or rather, coercing the nurses into playing their stupid games with them). Beckett ended up punting them out a couple of days early to go back to their quarters and leave him alone.

“You about ready, sir?” 

Evan glanced at Lieutenant Kennel, who was failing to hide his anxiety about the impending trip. His entire team had been a ball of nervous energy, much more concerned about Evan’s return to the field than he was. They still felt responsible for losing him on Elar, even though there was absolutely nothing they could have done to stop it. He expected they would probably hover more than usual for the foreseeable future.

“Just about,” he answered, fiddling with the straps on his tac vest that didn’t fit quite right since he hadn’t yet gained back all the weight he’d lost. Getting geared up was second nature, but it had been long enough since he had done it that he wanted to double check that he wasn’t forgetting anything. Wouldn’t do to get complacent. 

He did a quick visual sweep of his locker one more time just to be sure he had everything, and something at the bottom caught his eye. It looked like some kind of small, black stone. Sometimes he pocketed interesting rocks on missions, a habit he’d never outgrown from when he was a kid and hoarded every shiny piece of gravel he found, but he didn’t recall finding any recently. He frowned and bent to pick it up.

The moment he touched it, he could tell it wasn’t an ordinary rock, but rather some kind of Ancient device. The gentle hum was so quiet he could barely hear it over Atlantis’ steady song in the back of his mind. It felt warm, too. And... Happy. 

He had a fleeting image of a dark cave and a giant sleeping creature with iridescent scales. The cave! He had picked this up there and then forgotten all about it. That had been months ago; how had no one noticed it before now? And what was it?

He studied it more closely. It was a little smaller than the palm of his hand, perfectly round, and smooth on all except one flat side that felt rough, as if it was broken. When he turned it, he could see a faint line swirling through the dark stone, glittering in the light like tiny crystals. Focusing, he listened to the soft whisper it was making to see if it would tell him what it did.

He couldn’t make out any distinct words, but the sound made him feel peaceful. Content. Like a weight lifted off his shoulders; like there wasn’t anything to worry about. Holding this rock, he felt like all the problems in the universe melted away, like this was the solution he’d been searching for all along.

There was something else there, too, that was harder to describe. The closest thing he could compare it to was the feeling he’d had when he had held each of his nephews for the first time. It was that awe of looking into their sleeping faces, smelling their hair, the grip of a tiny hand around his finger. The overwhelming desire to protect them. The knowledge that he would do _anything_ for them. He realized with alarm that what he was feeling was love. Specifically, a parent’s love for their child. It was instinctual. Joyful. The epitome of hope for a brighter future.

And then it clicked. _This_ is what the Shadows wanted.

Glancing around the busy room, he spotted Sheppard at his locker, chatting with Ronon. “Colonel Sheppard,” he called, drawing the man’s attention. He hesitated for a second before tossing the device to him. It was hard to let it go. The warm, happy, secure feeling went with it.

Sheppard caught it with confusion, but as he looked at it, his face softened into a smile. “Where did you get this?” he asked in wonder.

“The cave with the dragons,” Evan said, now realizing why the dragon had led him to Devil’s Hole in the dream. His unconscious mind had been remembering. “I forgot all about it.”

Sheppard continued to study it lovingly, turning it over in his hand.

“What is it?” Ronon grunted, skeptical of Sheppard’s sudden change in posture.

“It’s what they were looking for,” Sheppard muttered, tracing the lines in the stone with his thumb. Meeting Evan’s eyes, his grin grew even bigger. “It’s Hope.”

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All done! Wow, that is the longest story I have ever written. Like I said at the beginning, it went a completely different direction than I initially thought, but I'm proud of how it turned out. I hope you enjoyed it, too! Feedback helps me become a better writer, so hit that comment button and let me know what you think! This was the second installment in what is outlined to be a four-part series, so be sure to keep an eye out for the next part. Thanks so much so reading!
> 
> ~Minnicoops

**Author's Note:**

> Your feedback makes my day!


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